VW's Martin Eberhard Promises 500 Mile Range EVs By 2020
Not long ago, we explored the possibility of Audi taking out Tesla with its forthcoming brace of e-Tron electric sportscars. What we didn’t realize fully at the time, is how directly VW is going after Tesla. At a recent visit to Volkswagen’s Silicon Valley Electronic Research Lab though, I was shown the slide above, which represents the battery packs for the forthcoming e-Tron and e-Up EVs… and it suddenly hit me that Tesla founder Martin Eberhard was applying Tesla’s multi-cell strategy at Volkswagen, essentially duplicating Tesla’s work with the backing of a major OEM. Now, Eberhard is talking to Autocar, and he says that his Tesla-style multi-cell powerpacks could offer 500 miles of pure electric range within ten years. If he’s right, the other OEMs who are focusing on prismatic Li-ion cells are in for a rude surprise… and Tesla had better start making some progress.
Tesla’s major technological innovation comes down to the idea of massing numerous “18650” cells in a temperature-controlled battery pack. Though many dismissed the strategy when only Tesla was working on it, Volkswagen is clearly now a believer in the approach, and they’ve got a good case for it. The main arguments for 18650 cells are that they are the most common cell type, new chemistries always debut in the 18650 format, they offer the lowest price and highest energy density, and offer the most flexibility in terms of packaging.
VW also argues that redundancies allow the multi-cell design to offer more reliability and safety… although cost is likely to have been a major issue as well. But perhaps the most important issue is the scaleability and flexibility of the 18650 approach. VW gave us a picture of the kind of progress they’re able to achieve by simply plugging new 18650s into the existing battery pack design:
Clearly progress is being made, but Eberhard’s warning that a mature electric vehicle won’t be ready until 2020 should be well-heeded. It’s not a great sign that Tesla’s founder is warning that we’re ten years away from EV maturity while his former firm is rushing an EV sedan to market in the next two years. But the real challenge of VW’s gamble on Eberhard is to the Nissans, GMs and other firms jumping onto the prismatic Li-ion cell bandwagon. VW has made a bold gamble by betting on a cell strategy that other major OEMs were content to dismiss as Silicon Valley vapor. If an affordable 500-mile EV comes out of it, fortune will have truly favored the bold.
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- FreedMike Meanwhile...Tesla's market share and YTD sales continue to decline, in an EV market that just set yet another quarterly sales record. Earth to Musk: stop with the political blather, stop with the pie-in-the-sky product promises, and start figuring out how to do a better job growing your business with good solid product that people want. Instead of a $30,000 self driving taxi that depends on all kinds of tech that isn't anywhere near ready for prime time, how about a $30,000 basic EV that depends on tech you already perfected? That will build your business; showing up at Trump rallies won't.
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- Tassos NEVER. All season tires are perfectly adequate here in the Snowbelt MI. EVEN if none of my cars have FWD or AWD or 4WD but the most challenging of all, RWD, as all REAL cars should.
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- 1995 SC I remember when Elon could do no wrong. Then we learned his politics and he can now do no right. And we is SpaceX always left out of his list of companies?
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I don't think I'd want an EV with 500-mile range. Even if they can get the cost, size and weight down, a 250-mile range EV will always be cheaper, lighter and have more room. And frankly 250 miles is PLENTY for day-to-day driving. Unlike my wife's 100-mile EV, I don't even look at the battery gauge on my Tesla in around-home driving, because it is always more than enough. The range is only an issue on the occasional road trip; and even then I don't want to drive 500 miles without stopping! If I can go 200 miles and then stop at an L3 charger for 45 minutes to get a charge and eat, shop, stretch my legs, check my messages, etc I'll be more than happy.
I have 36,000 miles on my two year old Tesla. Range is down about 5 percent. Certainly tracks with the 20% loss Tesla predicts on a 100k use battery. For those who say they can't find data, at TMC you will find that the larger percentage of Roadster owners are early adopters who own tech companies. (not celebrities). Those geeks have dissected and charted their battery performance extensively. The car has a USB port for downloading car history that also gives a superhighway of data to parse. Go to the Tesla motors club and root around. Just about all the owners there drive electric daily so it's all there, the good, and the bad.