Tesla has just fundamentally redesigned the very way that its own battery packs integrate into their own vehicles which then turns them into particular structural elements of the very car itself instead of just something known as a fuel source.
At Tesla's recent Battery Day event that happened on Tuesday, Elon Musk actually compared this fact to how a commercial aircraft previously used to load their fuel into tanks that were later on contained within the wings, and even bolted onto the internal structure. Later on aircrafts became more efficient with how they could carry fuel and this is something that Elon Musk wants to achieve with Tesla.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk
The Tesla CEO stated that even the modern airplane uses the wing as a fuel tank and this is precisely what they want to do. It was stated that the fuel tank serves a dual structure and is fundamental to the whole structure of the aircraft. This is the type of innovation that Elon Musk wants to apply to cars.
Just by turning the whole battery cell into a particular structure component of the known vehicle, Elon Musk then pointed out that they will in turn actually save much more mass overall in the car compared to what you would assume on the paper if the simple structural supports inside the battery cells in comparison to their current existence. This is also because the actual battery itself is still doing a whole lot of those support work. Which in turn also makes the car much safer.
Elon Musk's plan to utilize everything
Tesla will easily achieve this just by creating a particular filler that also works as a sort of structural adhesive. This in turn, also acts as a sort of flame retardant. Elon Musk stated that it will effectively stick the cells towards both the top and bottom sheets making it possible to do shear transfer between both the top and bottom sheets.
It was also stated that in turn, this actually gives it a better stiffness and that most super-fast things work by creating a sort of honeycomb sandwich with two different phase sheets. It was also stated that this could actually be even better than what the aircrafts are doing because it is not possible to do this with liquid fuel.
The resulting batteries
The end result will show a particular structure that actually enables the Tesla cars to become much more stiff than other regular cars. The stiff design in turn is also better for the overall safety meaning the batteries will be much more efficient and could protect the driver during collision.
Elon Musk also said that the ideal structural battery design will use 370 less parts compared to the current Tesla battery cell design. This, in turn, will greatly reduce the cost as well as the potential failure points. This will result in a lot of different manufacturing savings according to Elon Musk.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
