# New electric car battery plant.



## Seasoned Oak (Feb 26, 2014)

This seems like progress. The good news is its going up in the USA and not farmed out to china or some other jobs black hole. ELectric cars wont solve all of our problems but they sure can help as a viable alternative.
Side note: Gas prices are spiking in PA as a new wholesale oil tax takes effect.
People will buy electric cars for the same reason they buy wood stoves,to get the oil gorrilla off their backs.


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## WiscWoody (Feb 26, 2014)

I heard something about Consumers Union picking a Tesla electric car as top rated? It is expensive now but it will the cost will come down and at some point in the future I think they'll look at internal combustion engines the same way we look at steam engines of the past.


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## BrotherBart (Feb 26, 2014)

How many sq. ft. will a Tesla heat?

http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/10/04/Tesla_fire.png_610x457.jpg


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## Seasoned Oak (Feb 26, 2014)

Although id be surprised if tesla is around in its present form 5 years from now,they have done wonders for the electrification of the automobile. Literally embarrassed  GM into    
developing the volt. 
Interesting ,milestone 400 million electric miles and rising. At some point they will make a significant dent in the transportation fuel consumption rate.
http://gm-volt.com/2014/02/25/volt-fleet-to-cross-400-million-ev-miles-today/


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## WiscWoody (Feb 26, 2014)

BrotherBart said:


> How many sq. ft. will a Tesla heat?
> 
> http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/10/04/Tesla_fire.png_610x457.jpg


From the flames I see I'd say a good 4000 sq ft! It doesn't look like a EPA burner.


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## Seasoned Oak (Feb 26, 2014)

WiscWoody said:


> From the flames I see I'd say a good 4000 sq ft! It doesn't look like a EPA burner.


Being electric its not a CAT model either.


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## fossil (Feb 26, 2014)

http://www.businessinsider.com/17-cars-catch-on-fire-every-hour-in-the-us-2013-11


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## scooby074 (Feb 26, 2014)

BrotherBart said:


> How many sq. ft. will a Tesla heat?
> 
> http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/10/04/Tesla_fire.png_610x457.jpg



About the same as a Ferrari






Or an F150


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## BrotherBart (Feb 26, 2014)

Looks like the F-150 would heat the largest area. Well, depending on insulation and windows.


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## scooby074 (Feb 26, 2014)

BrotherBart said:


> Looks like the F-150 would heat the largest area. Well, depending on insulation and windows.



Maybe for a sustained burn..Like a old Smoke Dragon

But the Ferrari would get things heated in a hurry then burn out. Sort of like those high efficiency, modern European Gassifiers.


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## BrotherBart (Feb 26, 2014)

Insured: Hello Bill. Had a fire. Vehicle is totaled.

Insurance agent: Please tell me it was the F-150. Not the Ferrari.


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## begreen (Feb 26, 2014)




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## begreen (Feb 26, 2014)

I'm excited by the new factory, especially because it is in the US. If they apply the same assembly techniques that have been learned with the Tesla S then it should dramatically lower the cost of batteries. This is good for Tesla, Toyota or Chevy.

Not sure about the Volt comment. Chevy was showing a Volt concept vehicle in early 2007, a year before the Tesla? FWIW, I really like our Volt. It's a great driving car.


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## Seasoned Oak (Feb 27, 2014)

Li-ions are also known to flame out in laptops and airplanes if not thermally regulated correctly. GM seems to have got it right.



begreen said:


> Not sure about the Volt comment. Chevy was showing a Volt concept vehicle in early 2007, a year before the Tesla? FWIW, I really like our Volt. It's a great driving car.



Tesla may have influenced their decision to go ahead with production. Bob lutz commented at the time, that if a couple of guys can do this out of their garage a big car company like GM can certainly do it as well or better.(May not be exact words)


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## begreen (Feb 27, 2014)

I'd think he was referring to the roadster. The S came out much later and was not made in a garage.


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## begreen (Feb 27, 2014)

Has anyone calculated how many batteries a plant this size will produce a day and how many cars they will power?


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## peakbagger (Feb 27, 2014)

The big value with lots of electric cars is the battery packs lose capacity long before they wear out. Chevy teamed up with an equipment supplier to use used Volt batteries for stationary power storage. I expect Tesla will also. A Tesla battery is supposedly large enough to supply a house for three days. That make non gird tied power a lot easier and if some well off person wants to subsidize the cost of the battery by buying a Tesla so I get a battery for a far lower cost used, great for me.


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## midwestcoast (Feb 27, 2014)

begreen said:


> Has anyone calculated how many batteries a plant this size will produce a day and how many cars they will power?


 
I read that they are planning to be building 500,000 Tesla/yr by 2020 and to supply all the batteries from this plant. Not sure if they are planning to sell to other companies as well? Since Panasonic is one of the partners, I'd expect yes.

It's awesome to see a company succeeding by building an electric vehicle that looks gorgeous, drives like the best luxury vehicles (so I hear anyway), gets rave reviews for quality, and doing so much of the fab & assembly in the U.S.
Hats off to Musk. He's got extraordinary vision & seems to be extraordinarily able to make his visions into reality.


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## semipro (Feb 28, 2014)

I think Tesla has plans for these batteries beyond cars, things like grid storage, etc.


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## Frozen Canuck (Feb 28, 2014)

Yes when we can take the old batteries from our vehicles & place them in our homes, tie them to the solar panels, then we are getting places. Even if all we can do is slowly remove the residential loads from the grid it will make a huge difference.


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## Redbarn (Mar 1, 2014)

Tesla have stated that one of the reasons for dramatically increasing their battery production capacity is to help buffer electricity demand at their charging stations. By using  large battery banks, they can even out power demand and avoid the high use charges that power companies put on high draw surges. 

One of the limitations of electric cars is that they can accept charge faster than the electric grid can supply it.
By using Li ion battery banks, charge turn around time can be reduced.


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## semipro (Mar 1, 2014)

Its interesting to think that underground storage tanks full of petrol fuel at filling stations and supplied by over the road tankers may be replaced by banks of batteries at charging stations charged continuously by the grid and able to very quickly 'fill up' electric vehicles.


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## Seasoned Oak (Mar 1, 2014)

semipro said:


> Its interesting to think that underground storage tanks full of petrol fuel at filling stations and supplied by over the road tankers may be replaced by banks of batteries at charging stations charged continuously by the grid and able to very quickly 'fill up' electric vehicles.


So far no one has gone that route. As ranges increase it probably wont be necessary.


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## jebatty (Mar 1, 2014)

I can foresee in the near future the local power distribution company having battery banks staged throughout its system which may largely make the concept of need for peak power generation from large power plants a thing of the past. Also will make distributed power a reality. I can foresee the power company furnishing and leasing a battery pack to a homeowner or business for her grid-tied system, soaking up the extra power from the home solar and then delivering it back during non-production times; also soaking up excess grid power, on and off, as power demand changes from minute to minute, and then delivering it back to even out distribution.

The importance of peak power demand as currently emphasized by Big Power is a ruse to kill competition and protect profits. If a company like Tesla can raise money for a big battery plant, Big Power can easily do it. I think Big Power is a dinosaur in its own time, and will be passed by with innovation from those who see a brighter future than fossil fuel based power. What's the common thread among horseshoes, Swiss mechanical watches, buggy wheels and Big Power? Extinction.


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## brenndatomu (Mar 2, 2014)

Electric cars solve one problem, create several others...not a solution IMO.


jebatty said:


> buggy wheels... Extinction.


Not extinct, just endangered 

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## blades (Mar 8, 2014)

brenndatomu said:


> Electric cars solve one problem, create several others...not a solution IMO.
> 
> Not extinct, just endangered
> 
> ...


Yep all this talk about batteries and e-vehicles saving so much, sorry still got to:1 create battery - Lot of energy used there plus consumables that are not green ect ( somehow never makes into conversation) 2 charging batteries- where the hxxx do you think that juice is coming from.? 3- when the battery is shot- now you have problems with disposal., 
So with the above inmind please include with your cost comparisons the amounts of coal oil lp NG  to produce said clean vehicle - makes not much different than my dino units.
Same with the  ethanol in the current fuel- doesn't save a thing- cost more to produce than without-  due to the ethanol production costs have risen on other items such as food due to the competition of acquiring base materials. 
So to sum it simple - one giant scam on consumer.
So now that I have alienated about 2 thirds of the readers of this thread have a nice day


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## semipro (Mar 8, 2014)

The simple fact that EVs offer the opportunity for use of renewable energy that can be produced from sunlight collected on my property sways me.
This also is the primary reason we heat with wood.
There may be stored chemical energy lying below my few acres (sort of like a battery if you think about it) but I'm not going to sacrifice my little piece of heaven to access it.
If I"m not mistaken, the preponderance of evidence shows that when the cradle-to-grave, life-cycle cost/benefits of vehicles are considered, EVs and HEVs come out ahead of those burning up our vast inheritance of well sequestered carbon. Admittedly, the evidence is mixed on this but then I go back to my first statement above.

Edit: after writing this it struck me as ironic that many of those that push for 'living within our means' as a nation financially are the same that would have us exhaust our large inheritance of (fossil) energy wealth rather than live on the annuity of sunlight provided to us.


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## woodgeek (Mar 8, 2014)

blades said:


> Yep all this talk about batteries and e-vehicles saving so much, sorry still got to:1 create battery - Lot of energy used there plus consumables that are not green ect ( somehow never makes into conversation) 2 charging batteries- where the hxxx do you think that juice is coming from.? 3- when the battery is shot- now you have problems with disposal.,
> So with the above inmind please include with your cost comparisons the amounts of coal oil lp NG  to produce said clean vehicle - makes not much different than my dino units.
> Same with the  ethanol in the current fuel- doesn't save a thing- cost more to produce than without-  due to the ethanol production costs have risen on other items such as food due to the competition of acquiring base materials.
> So to sum it simple - one giant scam on consumer.
> So now that I have alienated about 2 thirds of the readers of this thread have a nice day



1) Battery materials can be recycled.
2) IC engines are very inefficient, being designed for power/mass, ability to throttle and low cost/maintenance, compared to high eff stationary turbines.
3) We agree 100% on Ethanol.  Let's scale it back 80% to the min needed for a fuel additive.  A huge amount of new land was put in production for the entire useless exercise == less natural habitat for no good reason whatever.


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## btuser (Mar 8, 2014)

When Iran oil comes back online Brent crude will drop to $80 or below.  If Iraq settles down it could go lower (President Putin is about to relive the end of the 1980s!)   $2.50 gasoline could be a damper on sales but $150/kw is some magic number for utilities so I guess that would help.  Smart cars charging at night and smoothing out peak loads during the day would lead to a very robust system.

I'm a big believer in the electric car.  I would love to see Tesla become the new mega-super-hyper-Apple conglomerate of all encompassing ethos.  But this is round II of pump and dump for them.  The first round netted them 2 billion in stock to keep the Model S afloat (love the car, but they needed the cash).  This round gets them another 2.5 billion (unbelievably favorable terms) and values the company at 34 billion dollars.  That's almost 1 million dollars for every car they sell.  It's kind of interesting that they would choose to hype the diversification into the utility market as justification for a factory they desperately need in order to be able to build a mass produced <40k car.  Keep in mind that meanwhile the rest of the electric car battery market is swimming in excess capacity.  Nissan already has a 500k sqft factory in Tennesee (built with 1.4B in taxpayer loans, but apparently it's only vogue to trash American companies right now) capable of supplying batteries for 200,000 cars.  Currently employing 300 people and chugging away at 7% capacity.






The megafactory is already built.  I don't know if a gigafactory is going to be that big of an improvement.  We'll have to see what Tesla comes up with for their Model E. One thing they've done right is understand people will buy the car they want vs the car that's good for them.


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