During the "Third Row" row interview, Elon made a comment about building battery modules, a pack assembly, and then the pack in a box. Thinking about it, there is a reasonable approach:
In this sketch, the cooling channels are shown between top and bottom surfaces. However, the cooling channels could go side-to-side so the bottom remains flat. The coolant manifolds would be on the edges.
Bob Wilson
- Eliminate individual cells by starting with a battery block.
- Either cylindrical or prismatic recesses, which ever is easiest to stuff.
- cylindrical is traditional for a 'jelly roll'
- prismatic uses a sandwich (aka., the Toyota style)
- Bottom has base buss bars for assembling cells into groups.
- Top has the fuse wires and top buss bars.
- Coolant channels run through the battery block.
In this sketch, the cooling channels are shown between top and bottom surfaces. However, the cooling channels could go side-to-side so the bottom remains flat. The coolant manifolds would be on the edges.
Bob Wilson