this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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They have a huge head start. And their battery tech is top notch even if the rest of the vehicle is poorly build.
I'd personally never buy one either, for multiple reasons, but most people don't care/know about the shitty build quality, the shitty ai and the scummy locking features down remotely when you sell the car.
Is the battery tech that good though? Genuinely don’t know.
Seems other manufacturers have a huge head start in every other area of manufacturing cars and even if they still lag behind on battery tech, it won’t be long before they catch up on this one metric, whereas Tesla would have to catch up on every other metric.
Most battery tech is just lithium ion batteries wired in series, like 80 laptop batteries. They regulate the temps so that the batteries don't degrade too fast. Battery tech hasn't changed much in decades, so you will see the same problems on your phone battery on car batteries. So, no, Tesla battery tech isn't special.
I recently heard china is the first to manufacture sodium ion batteries for their consumer EVs. Sodium is supposed to be better, but I forget why.
IIRC, the reason sodium batteries would be better is we have abundant stocks of sodium, whereas the raw materials for most other batteries are limited and require more destructive mining. John Oliver just covered some of this on his show last Sunday. If that tech can be improved, hopefully there won't be any deep sea mining for more raw materials!