New Take On Small Batteries

When I ordered my Aptera, I had the option to pick between 250, 400, 600, and 1000 mi range. I went w/ 250 b/c I want to keep it light. Our 250 mi Tesla has enough range for us.

 

Wait until the government adds a ‘current guzzler tax’ to all of the large battery EV’s. I predict this will happen in the not too distant future.


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That or a weight tax. As I said the entire goal is to reduce energy consumption. Having massive batteries

 

The Aperta. There’s something I forgot about

 

But, but, the government decided to eliminate tax credits for EVs with small batteries.

 

My first leg coming back from Atlanta in mid 50s, I was looking at 140 range. Temp dropped into 40s after that and I was down to ~120.
That was also a 700 mile trip. Maybe half the fast chargers were 50kWs. I would have dearly loved more range. That first return leg was not quite enough for me to do 2 instead of 3 recharges. I do my best to avoid reaching a charger with inadequate range to get to a backup should it be down. That paid off on the 2nd return leg. A charger was down, but I had the range to reach a slight detour DC charger.
Mostly, my SE is my daily commuter, so the limited range is not an issue.

 

The SE doesn't use any of the i3 cells. They are a different capacity, dimensions and from a different manufacturer. I have not seen the SE chemistry type quoted.
I have seen battery weight specs for both.

441lb for the Mini.
562lb for the 94 and 120 i3s.

That suggests to me that the SE already has an energy density at an i3 120Ah level.


The SE has an electric handbrake to allow more space for batteries. It is packed tight. The only real free space is behind the back subframe. BMW likely had safety as well as economic reasons for not having an additional pack there.

 

From the Miami press event:

According to the press release, the MINI SE uses the last-gen i3 battery tech (94 Ah – 32.6 kWh) rather than the 120 Ah battery used in the 2019 i3. If this is true, why was this done?

A modified version of the 94Ah battery package is used and it repackaged to fit into the T-Pack used in the Cooper SE. Therefore, the MINI Cooper SE has battery pack of 32.6 kWh and 28.9 kWh net.​

 

That is just plain wrong.
The SE uses different cells to any i3. The 94Ah Samsung i3 cells were too tall for the Mini, so BMW used shorter 97Ah CATL cells for the SE. It is certainly not an i3 pack in a different box. It is quite possible that some electronics are carried over, but the cells were definitely not.
The SE cells are a different physical size, different capacity, different manufacturer to i3 cells. Since the awkward shaped SE pack is significantly lighter than an i3 pack, I very much doubt that they are 333.

I suspect the marketing department made some guesses...

 

The i3 120Ah battery pack was 42.2kWh gross and the 94Ah was 33.2kWh gross. You can read the official specs for the 93.2Ah MINI Cooper SE.

 

SE battery is actually 97.2Ah, not 93.2Ah.

Specs are from the marketing department, which is never the most reliable source in any company.

Check the actual maximum L2 charging power of yours. I'll give you a clue, it isn't 7.4kW...

I also only ever get 49kW when DC fast charging.

Are all these small specification errors important? Not really. But they do show that the marketing department lacks accurate information and has been filling in the gaps.

 

You're right! I used my cable on the public AC charger and it's more than 7,4kW!


If we take the 350,4V x 93,2Ah we end up with 32,657kWh! We wouldn't be engineers if we didn't share our disdain for business and marketing people. #highfive

 

You have j1772 type 2 up in Canuckia?
My US type 1 maxes out at 7.2kW. I've checked this two completely different ways. Max AC charge current is indeed 32A as spec, but max drawn power is only 7.2kW. A marketeer no doubt multiplied 32A by 230V to get 7360W, then rounded up...

 

FYI 2019 MY was the last to feature mechanical hand brake. They were were all electronic in 2020. Also up to 2019 North American cars still used a 6sp Aisin automatic Vs the 8sp DCT found in RoW. DCT first year in NA was 2020

 

Wouldn’t be the first time BMW rounded up. E39 M5 is 4.9L but marketed as 5.0L same with the old 3.4 being a 3.5

 

Darn that German marketingabteilung ameisentätowierer with their 230V type 2 Mennekes!!

 

Ant tattoo artist…

 

My pet MINI Cooper SE marketing peeve is the company stating 184 PS as 184 HP.

 

Revealed: how US transition to electric cars threatens environmental havoc

By 2050 electric vehicles could require huge amounts of lithium for their batteries, causing damaging expansions of mining

The US’s transition to electric vehicles could require three times as much lithium as is currently produced for the entire global market, causing needless water shortages, Indigenous land grabs, and ecosystem destruction inside and outside its borders, new research finds.

[click for more]

 

That's probably why Toyota is trying to sidestep full BEVs with hydrogen hybrids. Maybe sodium-ion batteries can take off...one day.