WHY THE ELON MUSK CHOICE OF BATTERY IN THE TESLA IS THE WORST DECISION IN
ENGINEERING HISTORY AND HE DID IT TO SCAM THE STOCK MARKET
By Audret Conners
Elon Musk knew from day one that his batteries were deadly. He knew this,
as fact before he took over Tesla in a hostile take-over.
Elon Musk, Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson knew this before they invested
in Tesla.
They knew that the deal-with-the-devil that they made with Panasonic was a
scam to dump the dangerous batteries in the market.
Bernard Tse, one of Elon Musk's battery bosses, and his staff, told Musk
that his batteries were dangerous as far back as 2009
Musk has known that his battery system was a scam but he went ahead and
scammed the world any way.
Scientists have long understood that a lithium-metal anode would
theoretically pack in more energy. In fact, the first lithium-ion cells
that oil giant Exxon developed in the 1970s contained lithium-metal
anodes. (Exxon was working on batteries then because it worried that oil
might run out one day.) Single-use lithium-metal batteries were
commercialized about the same time and they are used even today in
specialized applications, such as deep-sea drilling.
Commercializing rechargeable lithium-metal batteries is a bigger
challenge. In the 1980s, Moli Energy, a Canadian startup, was the first to
succeed. But some of its batteries started catching fire, and the company
had to issue a recall. The incident led to legal action and Moli Energy
was forced to declare bankruptcy.
The use of lithium metal in rechargeable batteries creates three big
problems. First, it reacts with everything: water, oxygen, and even
nitrogen (all of which are present in the air around us), making it more
likely to catch fire.
Second, lithium’s reactivity means it suffers side reactions with the
battery’s liquid electrolyte, which is itself an energy-rich medium. These
undesirable reactions reduce the amount of lithium available and worsen
the battery’s life with every charge-discharge cycle.
Third, when a lithium-metal battery discharges, lithium ions separate from
the surface of the anode and travel to the cathode. When the battery is
charged the same ions travel back and deposit onto the anode as lithium
metal. But instead of forming a nice smooth coating on the anode, lithium
metal has the tendency to generate “dendrites,” chains of lithium atoms
growing from the surface of the anode, which look like the roots of a
tree. The dendrites grow bigger with each charge-discharge cycle,
eventually reaching the cathode and causing the battery to short, leading
to fires. Musk chose batteries whose dendrites grow the fastest, furthest
and are the oldest architecture. IN OTHER WORDS: TESLA'S ARE GOING TO
INCREASE THE AMOUNT THAT THEY BLOW UP!
As the industry struggled through these problems in the late 1980s, Sony
invented the graphite anode. Though less energy-dense, it suddenly made
lithium batteries a lot safer and more reliable. Since then, graphite
anodes have remained the mainstay of the industry.
Nearly 30 years later, however, we are brushing up against the
limitations of the graphite anode and Elon Musk still won't use one of
over 300 different energy energy storage systems because of the kickbacks
he gets from his deadly batteries.
Lithium ion mining is based in child labor camps in the Congo. Musk knows
this and covers it up. As Bloomberg's Nathanial Bullard points out,
Tesla's idea to "go private" is just another scam to try to keep the SEC
from looking too close:
You
may have heard that Elon Musk intends to take Tesla Inc. private.
Tesla sold 103,000 cars last year,
which makes it the fourth-smallest listed carmaker by sales
volume, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. If Tesla becomes a
private company, its projected sales volumes would make it an
outlier in the auto sector.
In terms of output and sales, it
would be an extremely large privately held automaker: smaller than
a major automaker subsidiary and tiny compared to the biggest
listed firms, while producing as a whole a mere fraction of
certain popular vehicle models alone.
I’ll use Tesla’s 2018 projected
sales, which Bloomberg Intelligence estimates will reach 261,000
vehicles, to compare it to big automakers that have a high degree
of specialization. Those 261,000 vehicles equal 51 times the
output of Ferrari NV’s privately held supercar peer manufacturer
Aston Martin and 78 times the output of also-private McLaren
Automotive Ltd. A private Tesla would be a very big private
automaker indeed.
Tesla’s forecasted vehicle sales
are more akin to a subsidiary than to a standalone major carmaker.
It’s about the same size as Porsche, a subsidiary of Volkswagen
AG. It’s half the size of Volvo AB (owned by Geely Holding Group)
and about two-fifths the size of Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc
(owned by Tata Motors Ltd.).
At that production level, it’s not
even a big model: Tesla’s total sales would be less than BMW’s
sales of just its 5 Series model (292,000), and a minor fraction
of the sales of the Toyota Corolla (1.16 million) or the Ford
F-series pickup (897,000). Toyota Motor Corp. and Volkswagen AG
each sold more than 10 million cars last year. The auto market
really doesn’t have anything else like Tesla, even though the
company plans to reach half a million in sales within a few years.
Perhaps going private would allow
the company to pursue a strategy of relentless integration without
analyst and investor scrutiny. In a tweet thread the day before Musk announced
his plan,
Andreessen Horowitz partner Steven Sinofsky made the case that
Tesla’s “more purpose built engineering” will benefit mass market
cars — though it’s unclear if doing so would result in more market
share or higher profits.
A privately held Tesla would
indeed be an unusual creature in an industry that sells 93 million
vehicles a year and books $2.5 trillion in revenue.
