http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/19/tesl ... next-week/

It's a coming folks. Greatest car in the world

Pilatus apparently is also going electric..........I'm gonna have to admit, it's the best all around turboprop there is.

Oh my gosh. You are killing me!!!

LOL, I have to admit I am having fun with this.

Bought some TSLA stock after it crashed, going back up. Good buy i think!

I just watched the video. "Oh, my ---, that's it, wow?! Wow, is that the new battery, OMG! How incredible" says the women in the back round. Just think when Apple decides the revolutionary idea of being able to swap a battery in 15 seconds like I do with my Samsung. The same people will be saying "wow, this is amazing! A new battery that quick, wow!!"

Very soon Audi will make his 2 electric car , game just started i liked

Dunno. Sure the PC12 is my unobtanium dream plane. Never will happen with my mission, but sure a nice piece.

Tesla - has its good points. Definitely the best electric out there. But sedans no matter the ilk are not my dream vehicle. Sure, I'm old school and love toque. But I'll still take old internal combustion. 10 years from now, who knows.

Can an electric PC12 fly XC fully loaded for lots of miles? I'll need to wait for Jason's review.

you haven't tasted power until you've test driven the new P85D.

The interesting thing is that today, the best batteries have 400W/kg power density. Gas has more than 10000W/kg, so as you can see batteries have a long way to go yet. However, you also have to take into account that batteries never need to reach those power densities, because the combustion or turbine engine only turns 20% of that energy into work, the rest is wasted as heat, noise and pressure. The electric motor turns 90% into work and is much lighter than any gas turbine. You often hear how gas turbines have such great power to weight ratio, but they don't stand a chance compared to an electric motor who can easily produce 10hp/kg.

So when all these things are taken into consideration - the efficiency of electric motors and their great power-to-weight ratio, it is an estimated guess that once we can get batteries into the 1000-2000W/kg power density range, they will pound for pound, surpass any form of combustion engine. Yes, 2000W/kg is still a long ways away in battery technology, but at the same time it's not. It has been achieved in labs already. When these power storage levels come to market, it will be all over for the combustion engine not only on the ground, but also in the air. Everywhere.

How long? I don't know. More than 10 years, but less than 50 in my opinion. But it will happen.

I must admit, I like the idea of quiet vehicles. I am all for improved battery technology. Of course, this technology must be reliable. When you have a battery and a motor you have the equivalent of two power plants and both must operate to complete the flight.

My neighbor at the airport ha a Pilatus and a Tesla..( one in every color)

I suspect you mean WH/Kg, watt hour per kilogram.

I don't know of any rechargeable battery that reaches 400 WH/Kg yet. Best I've seen commercially is Lithium Nickel cells by Panasonic which reach about 250 WH/Kg.


Got a link to a paper on this?


I'm somewhat skeptical. An issue with batteries is recharge time. A 747 can be reloaded with energy at the rate of 100 million WH per minute, which is an effective rate of 20 million WH per minute assuming a 20% net efficiency. This is like charging 22,000 lbs of batteries every minute.

And then there is the cost of the battery to consider. If it is made of unobtanium, might be too costly to make the battery.

Safety is a concern. A high density battery will be a fire hazard like the Lithium cells have been.

Mike C.

That would be my concern - fire! I remember the Ni-Cad batteries catching fire in jets. I have watched cell phones catch on fire also. Sure would hate to be at 20k ft and have the battery pack catch on fire.

I don't have a pic-12 but I sure do love my tesla! Can't wait for the x. Gull wing doors had me at hello.

Unfortunately the best device for storing electricity in 2014 is Hoover Dam!

The Lithium Nickels are amazingly quick to catch fire.

We performed nail puncture tests on 18650 cells. We used Lithium Cobalt cells (LiCo, the kind normally in laptops, what we think of as Lithium rechargeable batteries), Lithium Nickel (LiNi, Panasonic's new cells), and Lithium Iron Phosphate (LPF) cells.

The LFP is well behaved, a little heat build up, some steam, some dribbling of fluid, no fire or major smoke. A neighboring cell appears unaffected. LFP is somewhat lower energy densities, but it has high cycle life (2000 cycles) and good safety properties. This could replace lead acid in aviation uses.

The LiCo cells will catch fire after about 10 seconds. Fire is moderate, not overly aggressive, but the cells do get hot. At a certain point, a neighboring cell will catch fire just from the heat conduct over to it, then you get a cascade failure. The Boeing Dreamliner fires are LiCo batteries (which I don't think are really aviation worthy, but they didn't ask me). One cell in their pack, built by Yuasa, had a fault and then that quickly spread until all cells were on fire.

LiNi, on the other hand, is on fire INSTANTLY. I mean we had to pause the video and count the frames one by one from nail contact to flames shooting out of the cell. It was way less than 1 second! The neighboring cell went off in 3 seconds, too! I was amazingly fast. The video is client owned, maybe I can get permission to show it someday.

Now hear is the scary part. Tesla signed a deal with Panasonic to jointly manufacture and supply Lithium Nickel cells. Tesla's cars now have the LiNi cells in them.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/10 ... sla-1.html

Any mechanical damage to the cells, and I mean just about ANY damage, and those cells will go off like roman candles. Tesla segregates the cells in various groups and packs in the main battery assembly, but still, one cell going off will cause some damage. There are a total of 7,014 cells in a Model S! What are the odds none of them fail?

I would be interested to see what the field experience is with Tesla Model S in accidents. Maybe it is better to have a few cells spit flames than to spill gasoline, but it is something to worry about.

Mike C.