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from the 490-must-be-enough-for-anyone dept.
With the latest long range Tesla rated at 402 miles, newcomer Lucid Air demos one of their cars going 450 miles in real-world driving. An additional 40 miles were driven after the Motor Trend witness called it a day.
2021 Lucid Air First Ride Review: 450 Miles on One Charge!:
Lucid engineering is located close to Tesla in the Bay Area and the article claims they employ 1200 people at this point--not a small effort. A clipping from the end of the story:
Back on the road and heading north, we pass a milestone: 402 miles, or the highest rated range for which a Tesla model is certified. At this point, the Air's battery reads 16 percent remaining, and the range prediction has now dipped to 478 miles. An hour and a half later, we roll into Lucid HQ for a coffee, a stretch, and a shake of our foggy heads, then crawl back in and head out again. We cut west across the Dumbarton Bridge to lap up and down the 101 as it arteries along San Francisco Bay's east side, increasingly reddening on the traffic map. The day is starting its reverse transition to twilight, and we're experiencing range anxiety of the opposite type: Instead of worrying about running out of juice, we're getting anxious that we'll never stop driving.
At 6:20 p.m., 450 miles and almost 12 hours after we started, we pull back up to HQ. A stubborn 7 percent of energy is displayed on the screen, predicting a range of 484 miles—that's now probably very close to reality for this trip—and we sit silently for several seconds before I concede the battery has beaten us. That's enough; we're calling it a day. I slowly climb out of the car and straighten up. Later that evening, a fresh Lucid driver took out the car again, finally ending the experiment at 490 miles. Not the FEV laboratory's 517, but 95 percent of it, every mile demonstrated in the hills and heat of the real world.
Also noted in the article is that Lucid have developed their system in-house, not using available parts from suppliers. They make their own 900V battery pack which allows motors to be smaller, and charging (with the right charger) to be faster.
Getting closer, but still not enough range for this AC--I'm headed out for a 730 mile road trip tomorrow, it took about 12 hours when I did the same trip last month (didn't want to fly for viral reasons). I stopped to pee a few times and twice for gas, never pushed the ~400 mile range of the gas tank of my Impreza. Yes, it's a bit noisy, that's what ear plugs are for!
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Wednesday August 12 2020, @12:05PM (3 children)
And enough AMPs to move a battery laden vehicle.
This isn't grandpa's battery that is relatively safe unless you physically toss a wrench across the terminals.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:13AM (2 children)
This will make an interesting study of how well 900 volt DC insulation materials hold up against age, thermal cycling, humidity, and salt sprays found on coastal areas and northern iced roads.
DC arcs are nasty.
Incidentally, it only takes something in the range of 17 to 45 volts to do a welding job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welding_power_supply [wikipedia.org]
I'm just saying "be careful". Stored energy easily released is deadly.
I used to work in an oil refinery and I have seen some whoppers in the switchgear room. I'm glad I was nowhere around when it happened.
What I am afraid of is the extremely high RATE of energy release battery systems are capable of. The reactants are so close together and the resultant reaction is not limited by inertial time physics of transporting the reactants to each other. Even gasoline explosions require oxygen, and even that is limited by the physics of transporting oxygen into the reaction site. This is more like C4, where all the reactants are already in close proximity.
And, based on what I've seen, lots of today's students are prepared to pass standardized tests, without necessarily knowing what they are doing. Not only that, we now have a whole generation of people tolerant of shoddy design for a quick ROI.
Planes that don't fly.
Software designed for subsequent malware insertion. ( mixing code and data).
Endless bugfixes that quash one bug, creates two more, and introduces yet more complexity instead of streamlining.
And disasters in the aerospace industry I could trace all the way back to technically illiterate people in command positions. No one wanted to risk being thought of as "not a team player".
These will be involved in significant physical accidents. Has anyone tried to blow up a car crusher by feeding it a fully charged hot battery pack?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:38AM (1 child)
> Incidentally, it only takes something in the range of 17 to 45 volts to do a welding job.
Fun fact -- this is why some attempts to move car electrical systems from 12V to 36VDC or higher (lighter starting motor & generator, smaller wires, etc) have not been successful. All the switch contacts weld(!), so you need to redesign everything to use solid state switches. And for any remaining bulbs with filaments, the thinner filaments for higher voltage fatigue faster and fail. I believe that all the electric cars have a separate 12V system for lighting and other "house" loads.
Battery Safety:
Here's a new site with contributed articles meant to help students who are designing/building Formula SAE/Student race cars. There are university competitions worldwide for two basic classes of cars: combustion engine and battery electric. I've linked an article that discusses the basics of battery safety for the battery-electric class -- https://www.designjudges.com/articles/lithium-ion-thermal-runaway [designjudges.com]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 13 2020, @10:15AM
Thanks! Very Informative link!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]