Charging new CTs?

Diehard

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As I was watching the construction site charging stations at the parking lot outside being built, it made me wonder when Y and CT are at full production and employees charging outside, how can grid handle charging every new CT and Y? Do the battery packs get charged to 50% when they are assembled somewhere else and shipped hot to be installed or they are installed empty and once vehicle is complete, they get charged to 10%, 50%, 90%. …. ? Anyone knows how this works for current production lines?
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Throwcomputer

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I am imagining the grid there can handle whatever they need to do. And that probably involves charging the packs up to a certain point after assembly prior to installation into chassis in order to run qc checks on each pack to make sure that each one that leaves the line is good. Then once the vehicle is done, they charge in their temp storage lot on slimmed down chargers prior to loading on trucks for end delivery.

If you watch drone video of their fremont factory you see they have them lined up for each truck in prep for loading and delivery. I've been watching the texas drone footage waiting to see where they end up building a giant lot for temp storage and delivery truck load prep. I'm guessing it will be where the construction parking lot is currently. Or maybe that new lot squished between the giga press building and the entrance road (although I can't see them storing new vehicles so close to the entrance road, and that lot currently does not have the appropriate sized parking lanes/layout for truck load prep).
 

Crissa

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The packs have to be charged, as the cell production has several validation steps where you charge and discharge them.

At GigaNevada, they planned to use solar, but as they built, the amount of geothermal available plus the solar efficiency increases on the market meant they didn't need as many solar cells on roof as they planned.

-Crissa
 

SwampNut

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The general industry norm is to ship lithium batteries at 70%. I don't know what Tesla does. For example I just got a couple of quadcopters and all the batteries arrived between 67% and 72%.
 

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Newly-manufactured cells must be conditioned with charge-discharge cycles. Similarly, the assembled packs go through QC checks.

However, I would think that everything would be kept at a low SoC until assembly was complete, for safety reasons.
 


Ogre

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When I got my Model Y it was about 50% state of charge. I think a lot of times they are topped off at the service center though.
 

chalupacabre

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Texas is the largest electric wind generating state in the USA, so night time capacity will be sufficient when it doesn't freeze. Texas crude and natural gas (lng) production is mostly exported.
 

firsttruck

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Texas is the largest electric wind generating state in the USA, so night time capacity will be sufficient when it doesn't freeze. Texas crude and natural gas (lng) production is mostly exported.
Properly designed wind turbines can work in freezing weather. The models used in Northern parts of U.S., Northern Europe, even the North Sea work fine.

The problem is the Texas wind farm owners did not want to spend the extra money for better weatherization.

Also the nuclear power plant and coal power plants in Texas failed in the freezing weather too because again the owners did not want to spend the extra money for better weatherization.
 

Ogre

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I had a weird thought. I doubt it will ever come to fruition, but it’s a thought.

Imagine row after row of Cybertruck rolled out of Texas. Only instead of being in a flat, empty parking lot, each one of them is plugged in while it is waiting for it’s transport to arrive. Only they aren’t just sucking up power, Tesla quietly adds them all to their virtual power plant.

Overnight, Tesla could make one of the largest power storage projects in the US. Just using idle trucks waiting for delivery.
Tesla Cybertruck Charging new CTs? 1637641593467


Probably not a thing… interesting thought experiment though. That’s a lot of untapped storage.
 


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Diehard

Diehard

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I had a weird thought. I doubt it will ever come to fruition, but it’s a thought.

Imagine row after row of Cybertruck rolled out of Texas. Only instead of being in a flat, empty parking lot, each one of them is plugged in while it is waiting for it’s transport to arrive. Only they aren’t just sucking up power, Tesla quietly adds them all to their virtual power plant.

Overnight, Tesla could make one of the largest power storage projects in the US. Just using idle trucks waiting for delivery.
1637641593467.png


Probably not a thing… interesting thought experiment though. That’s a lot of untapped storage.
If Tesla reads this or has thought of this already, they probably will do it.

I don’t know about you but paying for a new truck and getting a used one don’t sit well with me. Every cycle of that battery has to serve it’s owner.
 

Ogre

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If Tesla reads this or has thought of this already, they probably will do it.

I don’t know about you but paying for a new truck and getting a used one don’t sit well with me. Every cycle of that battery has to serve it’s owner.
I don’t know that Tesla would do it, almost feels like the infrastructure to do it across 1000s of trucks wouldn’t be worth it.

If they did, battery wear won’t be an issue, it’s unlikely to be parked long enough to push much power back into the grid. Likely less power than it takes to drive a 20-30 miles. Less mileage than most cars have when they roll off the lot.
 

anionic1

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As I was watching the construction site charging stations at the parking lot outside being built, it made me wonder when Y and CT are at full production and employees charging outside, how can grid handle charging every new CT and Y? Do the battery packs get charged to 50% when they are assembled somewhere else and shipped hot to be installed or they are installed empty and once vehicle is complete, they get charged to 10%, 50%, 90%. …. ? Anyone knows how this works for current production lines?
I am fairly certain that every battery pack has to get cycled numerous times as a safety test before the vehicle leaves the assembly line. I was doing some work with Rivian and that is what I hear. I don’t really get why you care where they get assembled. I have sat in meetings and heard Southern California Edison quoted as saying their grid has more than enough capacity to handle anything the EV market throws at them. Remember they are quickly losing demand to solar so this WV thing is a huge saving grace for them.
EV charging is all code driven. If the chargers are being permitted which most will be, they won’t be tied to a power source that can’t handle the demand. I have a huge project right now with 60 plus EV installed chargers, 60 plus EV ready stalls and 120 plus EV capable stalls. That alone is taking about 8000 amp of power to the building. Some large projects like this use charge controlling systems where a monitoring system prioritizes which chargers get to charge with how much power for how long so it optimized the system without needing as much max power.
 

Ogre

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A related, but equally weird thought. What if Tesla were to start installing solar charging arrays at businesses with V2G capabilities. So your car gets free power every day when you go to work, but also buffers the power grid when needed.

This whole V2G (vehicle to grid) concept kind of grows on you when you think about it. Particularly if paired with Tesla’s virtual power plant concept.
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