Tesla -- and Elon Musk -- have accomplished a lot with a combination of ingenuity and timing, but their future (and the future of viable electric cars) relies entirely on a single technological advance that's almost completely outside their control: the physics of storage batteries.
In terms of value returned for investment, present storage batteries are almost the single worst modern technology. The storage battery on the Tesla Roadster weighs 990 pounds, stores 56 kWh (about 202 MJ) and discharges in 244 miles (393 km) in normal conditions (vehicle speed and environmental temperature). This is a stellar example of applied science and engineering (it's much better performance than that of similar batteries) but it still represents a big obstacle to wide adoption of electric vehicle technology.
As a seasoned former NASA engineer who struggled with these same issues on spacecraft for years, I offer this advice: young people who are trying to decide what do with their lives should seriously consider a career in battery science and engineering. There is room for huge improvement -- huge.
Very accurate assessment, but although battery technology has proved to be a hard nut to crack I think it might happen within the next few years.
There are sectors of the economy that dearly need electrical storage and are willing to pay for it, primarily electric vehicles and renewable energy. Over the last few years it has become obvious that this is a huge market, and that there are enormous amounts of money involved for whoever improves the technology. This, hopefully, means that it will be the focus of research, grants, startups, and business.
There are sectors of the economy that dearly need
electrical storage and are willing to pay for it,
primarily electric vehicles and renewable energy.
This has been true for 200 years. Electrical vehicles were commercially available in the 1850s, but eventually lost out to gasoline vehicles because of... power storage.
If you have actual evidence to support your argument, provide it, but "we need one" certainly isn't it. We've always needed better batteries.
Given your experience in the area, what battery technology are you most optimistic about? Yi Cui's nanowire batteries [1]? Li-Air [2]? Anything else promising?
If you're not going to college there are two things you'll need to do as an initial step; read a book & get exposure to the technology.
Book: DeGarmo's Materials and Processes in Manufacturing [1] is practically the introductory bible for Engineering students, find a second hand copy and fast skim over all the chapters and then start drilling deeper. It's a good first step as if you can't find any parts of DeGarmo that interest you and spur you to learn further then this is not the path for you.
Exposure: Without a degree your path in is to pretty much become a field cog in a larger organisation; Army / Navy / Airforce / Mining Fleet Operations / Telcoms company that spans at least a state, etc.
Once you've done your time lugging batteries / installing batteries / appeasing customers / dogs bodying you need to leverage your way closer in to where development takes place.
It will be hard at times seem well nigh impossible to make any in roads in a field like this without a degree - rare individuals with the right practical background and an obsessive interest in material properties do sneak through now and again.
Companies or organisations that offer assisted study / in house training can help. Moving to other locations in the world with cheaper education or more job opportunities may help. Having a relevant trade skill (outstanding electrician) coupled with metallurgy skills (home plating baths & furnaces & meters) could help you along.
Obsessively read anything that relates to electron flows and chemical solutions and metal interactions . . .
I'm a former NASA engineer responsible for much man-rated spaceflight hardware, I wrote software that helped get Viking to Mars, I wrote some best-seller programs in the 1980s and retired at the age of 35, and I'm a seventh-grade dropout.
This doesn't mean anyone can drop out and become successful. It means success and schooling aren't strongly correlated.
If I remember correctly, Elon was saying recently* that current battery technology was good enough for EVs, though I'm sure he wishes it would improve a lot. I'm not sure if he meant that just further incremental improvements + economies of scale that come with mass production are good enough to bring EVs to where they need to be, or something else, though. That's from memory and I can't go find the exact quote right now, so I apologize if my memory failed me in this instance.
If the kinks can be worked out, this seems clearly preferable to a fully electric car. The wave disc motor is (claimed to be) extremely light, compact, and efficient. (It's only suitable for a series hybrid, though; it doesn't have the RPM range necessary to power a drive train directly.)
I remember reading something recently about how we don't actually understand how lithium batteries work. I wonder what we'd start to understand once we do.
There are ways to alleviate the need for batteries, although without a powerful source of energy it would be rather moot - Wireless Electricity. It could lift some burden from the batteries, still without an extremely powerful source it would be more or less moot.
An electric field strong enough to supply the power needs of an electric vehicle would fry any pedestrians that happened to pass by. Wireless electricity is only practical for low power applications, where the field strength is harmless to humans.
Are you sure about that I do know that under right frequency Electric Field of over 10000V can be harmless, it's only the low frequency AC that really kills humans. Higher frequency is transmitted over the skin.
right now we rely on chemistry to engage particles small enough to achieve high energy density. Maybe some nanomechanics can play its role? this way we could have better control over the dynamics and maybe use explosives as fuel (only they will oxidize in a controlled way and not explode)
You seem to imply in your first paragraph that they have a real problem by relying entirely on something outside their control: the physics of storage batteries.
But then you end up your post saying that the room for improvement is -- huge [sic].
So which is it?
If it's that huge, why should they be worried? Especially seen that they're apparently going to be profitable with "only" 20 000 cars this year...
> You seem to imply in your first paragraph that they have a real problem by relying entirely on something outside their control: the physics of storage batteries.
Yes, for Tesla Motors, not a scientific research organization, it's out of their control. They are not a science laboratory, they are a car manufacturing company. They must wait for developments made by others.
> But then you end up your post saying that the room for improvement is -- huge [sic].
That's true, it's huge, and the improvements will be made by scientists doing applied research, not building cars.
> So which is it?
You've posed a false dichotomy.
> If it's that huge, why should they be worried?
I don't think they're worried, and I didn't say there were. I think Mr. Musk is betting that battery technology will improve in a timely way, and his record for such judgments is rather good.
They don't manufacture their own cells (why would they?) but the battery pack is their own design [1] and what sets them apart from other EVs:
The battery pack in the Tesla Roadster is the result of
innovative systems engineering and 20 years of advances in
Lithium-ion cell technology. Tesla's ingenious battery
pack architecture enables world-class acceleration,
safety, range, and reliability. The non-toxic pack is
built at Tesla’s Headquarters in Northern California.
In terms of value returned for investment, present storage batteries are almost the single worst modern technology. The storage battery on the Tesla Roadster weighs 990 pounds, stores 56 kWh (about 202 MJ) and discharges in 244 miles (393 km) in normal conditions (vehicle speed and environmental temperature). This is a stellar example of applied science and engineering (it's much better performance than that of similar batteries) but it still represents a big obstacle to wide adoption of electric vehicle technology.
As a seasoned former NASA engineer who struggled with these same issues on spacecraft for years, I offer this advice: young people who are trying to decide what do with their lives should seriously consider a career in battery science and engineering. There is room for huge improvement -- huge.