Tesla’s battery day is less than a month away, and there’s no shortage of speculation as to what could be unveiled at the event. Numerous attempts to detect subliminal messages within Tesla’s announcements and other related discussion topics have been shot down by CEO Elon Musk, which relatively confirms the fact that we as a community have no idea what will go down on September 22nd.
Battery Day is arguably Tesla’s most anticipated event due to its significance for the company’s future development. Not only could Tesla revolutionize the way electric cars work, but it could reveal the company’s plans to achieve price parity with gas cars. What goes down on September 22 will be enormous, and the EV community as a whole will see.
Initially, several members of the EV community had discovered the fact that Amprius Technologies Headquarters is located just across the street from Tesla’s Kato Road Facility in Fremont, California. In fact, CleanTechnica had even revealed that there could be a link between Tesla and Amprius in an August 26 article.
There was ample evidence that Tesla Amprius Technologies could use silicon nanowire tech for its new cell developments.
Musk, however, immediately dismissed any speculation from the two companies that were linked.
But really nothing. Was surprised to hear they are across the road. Adding silicon to carbon anode is logical. We already do. Question is exactly what ratio of silicon to carbon and what shape? Silicon expands like crazy at discharge and comes apart, so cycling life is mostly poor.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2020
To add fuel to the fire, Tesla also released a cryptic background for the Battery Day and Shareest Meeting Livestream site, leaving many people interested in what the design could mean.
For instance, Electrek indicated that doing a simple reverse lookup of the image on Google revealed that it also had a similar design as silicon nanowires, which Tesla would also relate to Amprius again.
While the EV community is puzzled as to what the design is for Battery Day and Shareholder, Musk finally delivered an update on the image.
“We were too dumb for our own good, although I think it works aesthetically,” Musk said in a Tweet that was in response to a question from @WholeMarsBlog. “Those are flooded collectors at the top / bottom of the cell, which are important, but I do not want to jump the gun on September 22,” he added.
Current collectors are crucial for improving the electrochemical performance of a lithium-ion battery cell. Usually made of aluminum or copper foils, the collectors are attached to binders that do not reach optimum capacity. However, a paper by Yuan Yue and Hong Liang states that if these collectors are damaged by discharge causing loosening of the getten layer, structural integrity compromise occurs. This damage is usually the product of extended cycles of charging and can be detrimental to the life of a cell.
Whether that has anything to do with what Tesla will unveil at its Battery Day event is unknown. However, speculating about what might happen is a good thing, because it allows community members to work together to try and see what might happen.
In the meantime, all attempts to unravel Tesla’s plan have been thwarted by Musk, indicating that no one really has any idea what the company has in store for the future of electric cars and energy storage systems.
