Toyota negative on batteries because it has more experience than other others on them

The gigafactory is just east of reno. Those are more of a manufacturing positions though. The NASA types are working in LA or Palo Alto far from the Russian river. I can see you tearing apart and testing packs in the gigafactory though ;-) Model X with those gull wing doors could probably swallow a wheelchair easily, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if they made a handicapped passenger model in the future.

But we are getting way off topic here.

 

Here ya go Bob ... 200 openings or more. . . . . I wouldn't mind carpooling with you, if you get a Tesla that is ~



https://chc.tbe.taleo.net/chc01/ats/careers/searchResults.jsp?org=TESLA&cws=1&CUSTOM_974=2545&WebPage=JSRCH&webversion=0&act=search

The only real down side? NO one gets a discount ... at least that's the official word I got.

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It's used in the 3 seat row Prius v or whatever they call it in other markets for the reduced space the pack needs.

 

correct, they seem to have a pretty good handle on it.

 

Except for saying it is bad for cars
I didn't mean to imply that Toyota doesn't know Li-ion batteries. Just that they prefer using NiMH because of investments made into materials and production for them. They likely pay less than open market for their NiMH batteries. The cost to the others got them to move to lithium even for their non-plug hybrids.

 

Toyota has a lot of Lithium ion, nimh, and other battery experience. I would not expect that information from 5 years ago is pertinent though, so Tesla, Nissan, GM, Ford, Hyundai should all be able to know about the same things about Lithium ion hybrid and plug-in batteries. GM and Tesla have the most experience with large liquid cooled packs, for bigger low priced per kwh fast charging. Nissan for air cooled large packs, toyota and ford for small hybrid snd phev air cooled lithium packs.

Panasonic and LG appear to be the leaders in the cell technology, but samsung, byd, and JCI also may come up with the advances.

Since Toyota is talking about the big low priced per kwh liquid cooled packs, they should know something since they work with Panasonic and had the rav4 ev with panasonic/tesla liquid conditioned pack. Do they know more than tesla, GM, Ford, and Nissan that all see lower priced 200 mile all electric range (aer) plug-ins in the next 5 years? Probably not. That is called bluffing.

 

what would happen if you put 108 kwh of batteries in a mazda 5, and drove it slow say 45 mph. could you get much more than 300 miles? . Some people asked and tried.
WAVE 2015: Metron 7 sets new record of 513 miles on one charge

a neat feature of this test vehicle is the smaller 22 kwh 150lb pack is removable, you know for a battery swap that doesn't take the bigger 86 kwh lithium polyimer battery. This is not an epa test but clearly you can add more battery and get more range. The battery packs here cost $50,000 which is the problem with commercialization of such a car, but what will they cost in 5 years? My guess is tesla could make that battery in 5 years for $20,000.