Elon Musk could also be too busy fighting the corporate previously often called Twitter, however analysis and improvement continues at a brisk tempo at Tesla Motors. Tesla has just lately filed a patent application for part of its battery pack design, which is expounded to creating battery cells which can be higher suited to being put in in automobiles.

While the undercarriage of the common automobile is much more hospitable to electronics with out the rattling, warmth, and fumes from the engine, battery packs (and every little thing else within the automobile) nonetheless should cope with sweltering warmth, freezing chilly, the jumps and jolts from dangerous pavement, and all the opposite indignities of visitors and the outside. This requires design issues that aren’t wanted in most electronics.

Tesla could also be doing higher than ever since Elon Musk embroiled himself with Twitter (now formally often called X). In Musk’s absence, the trailblazing EV producer has lastly introduced the controversial Cybertruck into manufacturing. But other than its most iconic (if not most beloved) designs, Tesla has been engaged on enhancing the design of its battery packs.

In order to provide the latest and correct data potential, the information used to compile this text was sourced from numerous producer web sites and different authoritative sources, together with USPTO, Samsung, MotorTrend, Car and Driver, and Edmunds.

Tesla’s Design Patent

• An EV battery pack consists of a number of particular person vitality cells.
• Tesla is making use of to patent vitality cells which can be cheaper to fabricate and simpler to put in.
• Energy cells typically resemble store-bought batteries, besides the contact factors are sometimes each on the identical finish.
• Tesla cells’ electrical contacts are designed to be as massive as potential to allow as a lot electrical energy as potential to movement by.

To first make clear a couple of phrases, an EV battery pack (folks generally name it the battery) is the large heavy factor that every one the automobile’s wiring finally results in. It is the supply from whence all energy comes, and sometimes the heaviest a part of the automobile other than the physique itself.

If one opens up the battery pack, you’ll find a lot of energy cells. These typically seem like the identical alkaline batteries one finds at any retailer. They are sometimes colloquially referred to as the “cans.” In impact, an EV’s battery pack is a number of particular person batteries boxed up in a single giant (and heavy) case. In the case of Tesla’s design, each the constructive and damaging battery terminals are at one finish of the cell.

The contacts considerably resemble a bull’s-eye goal. One contact is a circle within the heart, and the opposite is a hoop round it. Tesla’s patent states that both of the contacts may be constructive or damaging. In different phrases, the middle contact may be constructive and the outer ring damaging, or the middle contact may be damaging and the outer ring may be constructive.

Tesla’s Patent

Tesla has utilized to patent some refinements to the vitality cells inside battery packs. Some of those adjustments are designed to make them simpler (and subsequently cheaper) to assemble into battery packs. Tesla’s design adjustments would additionally make battery packs simpler to chill off.

Making EV Batteries Easier To Produce

The cells are designed to be laser-welded into place when putting in them in battery packs (although that isn’t the one manner they are often connected). The contact ends of the vitality cells are designed to have a minimal of issues in the best way. That permits for {the electrical} contact factors to be as massive as potential, which in flip permits for extra electrical energy to movement by them. Improving the flow of electricity makes fast-charging easier, and in addition reduces how scorching the batteries get when in use.

The prime of the battery is designed to deal with what the patent refers to as “mechanical load.” In different phrases, the cells are able to holding up the burden of the battery pack. The cells do double obligation, each storing vitality and bearing the burden of your complete battery pack. To accomplish the latter, they’re robust sufficient to resist all of the jolts and rattles that come from the treacherous pavement underneath the automobile.

Some Of The Many Uses Of The Sides Of Energy Cells

• The sides of the battery (referred to as the sleeve) can have a number of makes use of
• They can present an insulating barrier in opposition to wayward electrical energy
• They will also be used to chill the battery when it’s in use or charging

Not all of the enjoyable in a battery cell occurs on the contact factors and on the within. The sides of the energy cell (which the patent calls the “sleeve”) have various makes use of. Perhaps the obvious one is electrically insulating the cells. (That manner, electrical energy has no manner out of the cell besides by the contact factors.) Another use is labeling them. Printing data on the perimeters of the cells would make them resemble store-bought alkaline batteries much more than they already do.

Preparing The Battery For Bumpy Roads

In some variations, the cells’ sleeves will also be used as padding for after they get bumped collectively because the automobile traverses the uneven floor. The cells in an EV battery pack are positioned very shut collectively, typically touching one another. This makes padding all of the extra necessary, significantly in a battery pack that doesn’t get utilized in idyllic, jounce-free circumstances. (EV batteries endure harder lives than the battery pack that clips into the ability drill that somebody always drops onto concrete.)

Cooling The Battery Pack From The Inside Out

The cell sleeves can be utilized to attach the person cells to a cooling system. That cooling system generally is a warmth sink – basically a multi-finned steel radiator – a set of cooling traces, or anything. Batteries at all times generate some quantity of warmth when in use- even when it’s not noticeable. The warmth may be significantly dangerous when an enormous surge of vitality is pulled out of the battery or shoved into it.

While this warmth doesn’t matter for many pocket-sized electronics, it’s a fixed difficulty for EVs. The motors can draw immense quantities of vitality every time the motive force flooring the accelerator. And, in fact, fast-charging sends a flood of electrical energy into the batteries in a couple of quick minutes. This is why EVs have battery cooling systems. (EV batteries even have heating techniques. They don’t love extreme chilly any greater than engines do.)

Saving Money By Going Sleeveless

However, the sleeves may be omitted to save cash on manufacturing. This would probably solely be possible for very giant automobiles, as a result of sleeveless battery cells want more room between one another. When there’s no outer wrapping layer to dam electrical energy from passing from cell to cell, the one electrical insulation left is airspace.

How Tesla’s Patent Fits Into Its Battery Development

This patent doesn’t cowl what kind of chemistry is within the vitality cells. It may very well be lithium-ion, lithium-iron-phosphate, sodium-ion, or one of the many solid-state battery configurations that many automakers are assiduously making an attempt to get onto the street. Instead, this patent covers the cells’ common design. This is much like how the blueprints for a constructing specify the room layouts, however not whether or not the partitions might be coated in sheetrock or wooden paneling.

The Ambiguity Of The Patent

It is unclear what, exactly, Tesla is making an attempt to patent on this design. Unlike many patent purposes, Tesla’s submitting doesn’t conclude with at the very least a couple of paragraphs that start with the phrase “What is claimed is…”. That is to say, the patent doesn’t have an inventory of what’s novel sufficient to patent.

Most of the patent utility is a proof of what has grow to be the usual design for the vitality cells in EV battery packs. Of course, it’s potential that Tesla got here up with this design within the first place. After all, Tesla is the corporate that first made EVs successful. However, Tesla had this patent published in October 2023. It could be terribly careless (even by Elon Musk’s requirements) to attend over a decade to file the patent on a design.

The Potential Folly Of Patent Trolling

If Tesla Motors is venturing into patent trolling, it is a stunningly dangerous time. The firm’s fame has taken a considerable hit CEO/de-facto macot Elon Musk’s misfired dealing with of Twitter (now often called X). Furthermore, whereas Tesla sedans stay the ultimate phrase in EVs, the corporate has suffered substantial embarrassment with the uneven rollout of the Cybertruck.

Tesla’s sedans and coupes stay a few of the most revered EVs in existence, however that has not been sufficient to hold the corporate unscathed by latest occasions.

The Frenetic Pace Of Battery Research

This battery patent utility is one in all hundreds prefer it that attain the U.S. Patent Office by the truckload. Batteries are the hottest area of EV research as a result of no battery does every little thing producers need. Current EV batteries are too heavy, use too many uncommon metals (there’s solely a lot lithium ready to be mined from underground), and are too cumbersome.

No currently-produced EV battery gives the identical driving vary as a tank of gasoline of the identical dimension and weight. While EV batteries have reached a de-facto normal in the meanwhile, speedy change is coming.

As Counterintuitive As It May Seem, EV Batteries Are Getting Researched More Than Motors

While no EV producer considers the automobile’s motor to be good and wishes no additional revision, motors are a solved downside in comparison with the batteries themselves. Motors have been one of many first profitable makes use of of electrical energy, and have over a century of refinement behind them. In this sense, EV motors are just like the engines in ICE automobiles. Current analysis focuses on small but helpful alterations to confirmed designs, not reinventing them.

However, EV battery research is the opposite. It just isn’t step by step revising a settled know-how. Science labs are always arising with designs and ideas that promise to be “groundbreaking,” “game-changing,” “breakthroughs,” “revolutionary,” and all the opposite phrases so fondly beloved by PR writers.

The Uncertain Future Of EV Batteries

EV batteries are present process speedy change for a number of causes. Perhaps most pressingly, a worldwide shortage of lithium threatens to deliver future EV manufacturing to a screeching halt. Every EV battery in trendy use depends upon lithium. However, the steel is getting more durable to acquire whereas the world always calls for extra of it. The period of glibly placing lithium into every little thing from telephones to automobiles could come to an finish with out some earth-shaking breakthroughs in mining.

But other than the ever-present downside of finite assets, the age of EVs continues to be younger. No one has but produced a battery that does every little thing folks need. Tesla’s vitality cell patent could grow to be out of date quickly after it’s granted. After all, the wheels of progress flip sooner than the wheels on a Model S Plaid.