Report On Long Term Battery Degradation, Luxury EVs From Pininfarina And Maybach | 16 April 2018
Episode 91, Apr 15, 2018, 11:01 PM
Battery Degradation Not A Problem For Tesla | New Luxury EV Brand Pininfarina Launched | Maybach Concept Will Add Some Luxury Electrons | Sometimes You Really Need A Big Mac
Monday 16th April 2018.
The current Model 3 Tracker from Tom Randall and Dean Halford, as updated on 15th April, shows 16,303 cars produced, and a current rate of 2,785 Model 3’s being built per week.
BATTERY DEGRADATION
- Battery degradation is still largely the unknown long term question mark hanging over EV’s. And that’s not because there’s anything wrong with the technology, in general, it’s just the modern era or electric cars are a few years old rather than far longer for ICE cars.
- In Holland a group of Tesla fans on their forum are gathering data from 350 Teslas and the results have just been updated. The previous results were already very positive but now it seems there is less than 10% degradation after 160,000 miles. Electrek reports: “The data clearly shows that for the first 50,000 miles (100,000 km), most Tesla battery packs will lose about 5% of their capacity, but after the 50,000-mile mark, the capacity levels off and it looks like it could be difficult to make a pack degrade by another 5%. The trend line currently suggests that the average battery pack could cycle through over 300,000 km (186,000) before coming close to 90% capacity” One of the cars reporting into this study has done just over 280,000kms and it has just under 90% battery remaining.
- Of course we don’t know how many Tesla’s were supercharged every day and which ones were slow charged up to 70% diligently. Although EVs may be relatively new, the 18650 cells which make up the Model S battery packs are quite established now, indeed Tesla only chose that technology when they first started because it was the cost-effective proven choice.
- The temperature management is surely the key to this, even recently the Nissan LEAF without any thermal management has come under fire with people wanting to rapid charge it multiple times in a row.
- One commenter summed it up nicely: “By 160,000 miles on various gasoline engine cars I have owned in my life and (not including regular oil/filter changes), I've had to replace: a manifold gasket, timing belt, timing belt tensioner, dropped valve, muffler, and a head gasket. Granted, this wasn't all on the same car. But it is something you will NEVER have to replace on any electric car. To me, 10 percent battery degradation seems acceptable as a trade off.”
- The next things which spring to mind, how long will a battery actually last? Certainly longer than the other parts on the car I’d hazard to predict. And longer than the car itself probably, depending on where you live. What does this also mean for 2nd life batteries? Well it’s good from the perspective that they will be usable, but bad in that not so many cars will have them to spare.
PININFARINA EV
- “Plans are in place to launch high-end electric cars under the Pininfarina name” reports MotorAuthority. “The new Automobili Pininfarina was launched on Friday in Rome, where Pininfarina parent company Mahindra was competing in this weekend's Formula E Championship round. The cars will be luxurious, highly advanced and offer extreme performance. The first model arrives this year as the production version of the H2 Speed concept that was shown at the 2016 Geneva auto show. The H2 Speed is a track-only electric supercar that swaps a battery for a hydrogen fuel cell stack, and just 12 will be built. But confirmed Friday, a much more potent model will arrive in 2020 to serve as the flagship of the brand. It will reportedly use technology developed by Rimac as well as Mahindra's Formula E team”.
- Pininfarina claims that the 2020 hypercar will be capable of 0-62mph in less than two seconds, rivalling the next-generation Tesla Roadster and the Rimac C_Two. 0-186mph is targeted in less than 12 seconds, while a top speed of 249mph has been touted. A production run of around 90 examples is planned for now, with a 311 mile range.
- TopGear point out “It’ll also come with Level 3+ autonomy, too: not fully autonomous, and the driver will be needed for certain conditions, but a step up from simple lane-keep assist and radar cruise, for example”
MAYBACH EV
- Mercedes-Maybach revealed a new teaser for what looks like a concept for a new EV. The car is set to debut in just a few weeks at the 2018 Beijing Motor Show. This might be the Maybach SUV we reported on a few weeks back”: say AutoBlog: “It's difficult to make out too many details, but it definitely looks different than the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 that we've seen floating around for the past couple of years. A close-up shot of the steering wheel shows the soft blue glow that Mercedes has put on the EQ-branded concept cars. Other images show clean white leather, rose gold trim and a pair of seats flanking a flower-encrusted panel.”
WHEN YOU REALLY NEED A BIG MAC
- And finally, even when you’re testing one of the worlds best EV sports cars, you still need a Big Mac or 20 nugs. InsideEVs report a Porsche Mission E was seen at a drive thru McDonald’s. They have translated the video description: “During a night refueling near Stuttgart, we ran into a Porsche Mission E Test Mule. During the difficult testing of hungry – the driver went for Big Mac. Thanks to the front line, he couldn’t get away. Check out the video and photos of the prototype model that is likely to unseat Tesla from the throne.”
I’d love to spread the word about electric cars so, if you can, share this somebody who might be interested.
You can listen to every previous episode of this podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, YouTube, TuneIn, and the blog https://www.evnewsdaily.com/ – subscribe for free and get every new episode automatically and first.
It would really mean a lot if you could take 2mins to leave a quick review on iTunes which will help us spread the word to a wider audience about electric cars.
And if you have an Amazon Echo, download our Alexa Skill, search for EV News Daily and add it as a flash briefing.
Come and say hi on Twitter @EVNewsDaily, have a wonderful day, and I'll catch you tomorrow.
CONNECT WITH ME!