Tesla CEO: Nissan’s LEAF Battery Is Primitive
Nissan has made some bold claims in recent months about the battery pack for its upcoming LEAF electric sedan — namely, that it had broken the $400/kWh mark at a time when other automakers were boasting about lithium-ion batteries edging closer to $500-$700/kWh for future models. However, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, for one, isn’t worried about getting schooled by Nissan in the battery game.
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Source: Tesla CEO: Nissan’s LEAF Battery Is Primitive
Quote from the article:
In a call with shareholders and analysts on Wednesday, Musk slammed Nissan’s battery technology and said Tesla does not believe the Japanese automaker will beat the company on cost-per-kWh. Asked during Wednesday’s call whether Tesla is seeing competitors, and specifically Nissan, drop their battery costs faster than anticipated, Musk commented that the LEAF battery pack uses a “much more primitive level of technology” compared with the sophistication of even Tesla’s first prototype. This comes down mainly to the thermal management system, or the technology used to keep the battery within a healthy temperature range. Tesla uses what Musk described as active liquid thermal control, while the LEAF pack uses an air cooling system. As a result, the LEAF pack will have temperatures “all over the place,” causing it to suffer “huge degradation” in cold environments and basically “shut off” in hot environments, claimed Musk. Liquid cooling systems (General Motors’ choice for the Volt battery pack) can be more complicated, but also more compact than air cooling systems. Tesla needs to take some big bites out of the battery costs for the planned Model S sedan, which the company is betting will be its ticket to profitability. According to Musk, battery costs for the $57,400 Model S are on track to be 40 percent less than those for the first version of the $109,000 Roadster, which launched back in 2008 with a belly full of 6,831 battery cells similar to those used in laptops. |
Source: Tesla CEO: Nissan’s LEAF Battery Is Primitive
