Large electric motors, batteries and vehicles

the rocketry show
shop deals on amazon
rocket sok
The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Funkworks said:
We don't discuss governments, taxes and politics in here, or confine the discussion to the US. Batteries, electric motors and vehicles of all sizes have existed for 150 years in many countries regardless of bureaucrats, and that's the scope. And they're getting bigger and better. Engineering groups don't get into politics any more than rocket companies.

This is a boring glue thread, but for battery applications instead of glue applications. We monitor progress and new techs.

⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡

This "car" is amazing!

https://airspeeder.com/news/the-mk4-the-first-crewed-flying-racing-car
Click to expand...

Got it!
No politics in here...
 
Greg Furtman said:
I'd really like to see Tesla develop and sell a more affordable EV for us financially impaired. :)
Click to expand...
Well they've mentionned that as a goal in the past and there are rumors they will mention it again Wednesday. We know they've been developping a new car ("platform") but no one can confirm yet if it's a "Model 2" (hypothetical name for what you're saying), or a dedicated robotaxi (Fully AI with maybe no steering wheel). We'll see Wednesday.

Financially, it seems difficuly to justify a Model 2. Why make 1M cars selling at $25k, when they can make 1M cars selling at $35k? I think they'll get there, but I'm not sure it's time yet. Sufficient materials and production capacity for 10M+ cars a year must first be ensured (my opinion/guess).
 
Funkworks said:
Financially, it seems difficuly to justify a Model 2. Why make 1M cars selling at $25k, when they can make 1M cars selling at $35k? I think they'll get there, but I'm not sure it's time yet. Sufficient materials and production capacity for 10M+ cars a year must first be ensured (my opinion/guess).
Click to expand...
The "why" question depends on a lot of things. Can they make a bigger profit on the smaller car? Are they limited in the total number of cars they can produce? If they compromise on some things in a small car (like, say, battery capacity), could they produce more cars? Is a smaller car a good fit for their strategic goals? Would starting a new model get in the way of other projects they already have underway? I'm sure there's other questions that the bean counters will come up with before any new models get approved.

Also, given that GM and Toyota make 2.1-2.2M vehicles/year each, a production capacity of 10M/year is ... large. That's probably more than the entire US vehicle consumption. Granted, the US isn't the entire world, but you get the idea.
 
boatgeek said:
The "why" question depends on a lot of things. Can they make a bigger profit on the smaller car? Are they limited in the total number of cars they can produce?
Click to expand...
My understanding is that the entire EV industry is constrained by how much lithium (and other battery metals) is produced. So if an average EV includes 25 lbs of lithium, 1000 lbs of lithium allows 40 cars. And the simplified problem is this:

Given 1000 lbs of available lithium, what is the highest sales price you can ask for each car, while still selling the entire run of 40 cars?

boatgeek said:
If they compromise on some things in a small car (like, say, battery capacity), could they produce more cars? Is a smaller car a good fit for their strategic goals? Would starting a new model get in the way of other projects they already have underway? I'm sure there's other questions that the bean counters will come up with before any new models get approved.
Click to expand...
Tesla's car strategy has been to:

1. start with a low-volume very expensive car (Roadster),
2. move to a higher volume less expensive car (Model S and X),
3. move to an even higher volume, even less expensive car (Model 3 and Y).

It's no secret Ford's model T is an inspiration for all this so yes they do want to reach every budget level. However, ownership is not the only option. Tesla has some out-of-the-box ideas that don't require car ownership, largely made possible by AI. We'll see Wednesday which idea they put forward.

boatgeek said:
Also, given that GM and Toyota make 2.1-2.2M vehicles/year each, a production capacity of 10M/year is ... large. That's probably more than the entire US vehicle consumption. Granted, the US isn't the entire world, but you get the idea.
Click to expand...
Tesla could reach 2M/year before 2024 or close and should reach well over 10M car/year this decade. They might announce a new plant in Mexico Wednesday or at least tell us what's going on there because something is brewing (that would make for about 1 gigafactory per year). Speeches keep mentionning they have the most advanced manufacturing plants and processes ever. Fewer steps, fewer parts, higher automation, everything there is cutting edge.
 
Funkworks said:
My understanding is that the entire EV industry is constrained by how much lithium (and other battery metals) is produced. So if an average EV includes 25 lbs of lithium, 1000 lbs of lithium allows 40 cars. And the simplified problem is this:

Given 1000 lbs of available lithium, what is the highest sales price you can ask for each car, while still selling the entire run of 40 cars?
Click to expand...
OK, so that's 90% of where I'm going with this. Let's posit for a moment that the total amount of lithium in a car is directly proportional to its battery kWh. That's not perfect, but close enough for a single car/battery manufacturer. Referring to this list of battery capacities...

A Model Y performance has a 75 kWh battery. A Model Y standard has 57.5 kWh. A Leaf has 39 kWh. For the lithium cost of 100 Model Y Performance cars, you could make 130 Model Y standards or 192 Leaf equivalents. If Tesla makes $1000 profit on a Model Y Performance, $800 on a Model Y standard, and $550 on a hypothetical Leaf equivalent, their profit out of the same amount of lithium would be $100K for the Model Y Performance, $104K for the Model Y standard, and $105K for the Leaf equivalents. In that case, it would make a lot of financial sense to build Leaf equivalents. If the profit numbers are a little different, then you'll get different answers.

Of course, the strategic sales department will also have a say in what cars are produced since they want to cover a broad share of the market to avoid losing customers to other manufacturers.
 
boatgeek said:
OK, so that's 90% of where I'm going with this. Let's posit for a moment that the total amount of lithium in a car is directly proportional to its battery kWh. That's not perfect, but close enough for a single car/battery manufacturer. Referring to this list of battery capacities...

A Model Y performance has a 75 kWh battery. A Model Y standard has 57.5 kWh. A Leaf has 39 kWh. For the lithium cost of 100 Model Y Performance cars, you could make 130 Model Y standards or 192 Leaf equivalents. If Tesla makes $1000 profit on a Model Y Performance, $800 on a Model Y standard, and $550 on a hypothetical Leaf equivalent, their profit out of the same amount of lithium would be $100K for the Model Y Performance, $104K for the Model Y standard, and $105K for the Leaf equivalents. In that case, it would make a lot of financial sense to build Leaf equivalents. If the profit numbers are a little different, then you'll get different answers.

Of course, the strategic sales department will also have a say in what cars are produced since they want to cover a broad share of the market to avoid losing customers to other manufacturers.
Click to expand...
The profit margins are very different from your examples. No one comes close to Tesla's manufacturing efficiency. This goes back to what I'm saying about them "having the most advanced manufacturing plants and processes ever. Fewer steps, fewer parts, higher automation, everything there is cutting edge." One advantage they have is gigafactories. Another is casting. Instead of welding 70 parts or so together to make the underside, they make the largest castings in the world and do away with many steps. They build cars like Mattel makes Hot Wheels.

That giant casting at 1:05 is the largest in the world. No one else does this. 1 step instead of 50-100 welding steps. Basically an idea from Musk and Munro.



Listen from 17:10:



Munro explaining evolution towards large castings:



My point being that once Tesla's new and expensive machinery is set up, it costs them little to make each car.
 
Last edited:
Funkworks said:
The profit margins are very different from your examples. No one comes close to Tesla's manufacturing efficiency. This goes back to what I'm saying about them "having the most advanced manufacturing plants and processes ever. Fewer steps, fewer parts, higher automation, everything there is cutting edge." One advantage they have is gigafactories. Another is casting. Instead of welding 70 parts or so together to make the underside, they make the largest castings in the world and do away with many steps. They build cars like Mattel makes Hot Wheels.

That giant casting at 1:05 is the largest in the world. No one else does this. 1 step instead of 50-100 welding steps. Basically an idea from Musk and Munro.



Listen from 17:10:



Munro explaining evolution towards large castings:



My point being that once Tesla's new and expensive machinery is set up, it costs them little to make each car.
Click to expand...

I'm not disputing Tesla's production efficiencies. I'm just saying that a fixed quantity of lithium can make a wide range of numbers of cars depending on how large the batteries are. Depending on the profit margin on each model, you might make a larger profit making a few more expensive cars with larger battery packs or many less expensive cars with smaller battery packs. And that profit margins aren't the only thing a company will look at in pricing and deciding how many of each model to build.
 
boatgeek said:
I'm not disputing Tesla's production efficiencies. I'm just saying that a fixed quantity of lithium can make a wide range of numbers of cars depending on how large the batteries are. Depending on the profit margin on each model, you might make a larger profit making a few more expensive cars with larger battery packs or many less expensive cars with smaller battery packs. And that profit margins aren't the only thing a company will look at in pricing and deciding how many of each model to build.
Click to expand...
Yes there are sweet spots to maximize profits overall and I have no doubt they have the skills to model this. As a publicly traded company, Tesla's profit margins are publicly available but I don't think here's a good place to discuss this. Here's a text on pricing theory showing how to find sweet spots. I had a better one somewhere but forget where it is. I'll post it if I find it.

Edit: here's how wiki explains it. No doubt a better explanation than I can provide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_maximization
 
Last edited:
I might find a decent video summarizing “Investor Day” later this week but in the meantime, here’s an earlier one where Tesla’s head of design explains his job.

 
kuririn said:
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/tesla-production-innovation-cut-auto-costs-half-97569218A $25,000 Tesla?
Click to expand...
They're working on it. A new platform is in development, and the Mexico plant announced yesterday is for building it. Everyone (fans and CEO) appears convinced it would be a hot seller, so Tesla appears to be setting everything up for mass production before making any formal announcement. One theme at Investor Day yesterday was the reduction of production costs. They're completely redefining how car is built. As they often say, prototypes are easy, production is hard.

I like to make parallels with model rocketry, and while anyone here can build a LPR in a week, imagine how much more difficult it would be build 1000 of them or 1Mm, and how much time.

Here's how one superfan/investor puts it:

 
This looks like a fun EV to drive. As a guy who has driven VW Golfs for many years I find this size & style car to be both practical and fun to drive. Too bad it won't be sold in the US as the price is reasonable. I hope more US EV makers start selling something like this at an affordable price.

 
Greg Furtman said:
This looks like a fun EV to drive. As a guy who has driven VW Golfs for many years I find this size & style car to be both practical and fun to drive. Too bad it won't be sold in the US as the price is reasonable. I hope more US EV makers start selling something like this at an affordable price.

Click to expand...

Lucas Electrics and EV automobiles? Oh the humanity!
 
Greg Furtman said:
This looks like a fun EV to drive. As a guy who has driven VW Golfs for many years I find this size & style car to be both practical and fun to drive. Too bad it won't be sold in the US as the price is reasonable. I hope more US EV makers start selling something like this at an affordable price.

Click to expand...

BMW's i3 looks like a blast. It's out of production now, but I've seen used ones being very affordable (just before all cars went up in price).
https://www.caranddriver.com/bmw/i3/specs
Nissan Leafs are around $25k for about 147hp.
https://www.nissanusa.com/shopping-tools/build-price?models=nissan-leaf
⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡

I don't know this channel very much, but if he's right, and he makes a lot of sense to me, Tesla won't be moving from their top spot for a while.

 
Last edited:
Greg Furtman said:
Here's a more in-depth video about Tesla's new manufacturing process, permanent magnet motors (no rare earth elements), and inhouse controllers.

Click to expand...

This cracks me up because several years ago I heard an interview with an auto industry exec.
At the time Tesla was a struggling upstart auto company.
The exec. said that Tesla was struggling because they don't have the manufacturing experience that the big boys have. They don't have the decades of experience and knowledge of how to "do it right".
My how times have changed.
 

Similar threads

Winston
Putin's six "superweapons"
Replies
10
Views
2K
Winston
Winston
luke strawwalker
Went to JSC today...
Replies
2
Views
1K
luke strawwalker
luke strawwalker
goldlizard
Living on Mars from
Replies
15
Views
2K
aerostadt
aerostadt
M
Space Shuttle Models
2
Replies
36
Views
10K
lw_hughes
L
Peartree
Is your rocketry/auto parts collection insured?
Replies
12
Views
3K
luke strawwalker
luke strawwalker

Latest posts

Back
Top