PART 3: Master Plan 3 & Investor Day. Powertrain.(multi-part series)

April 16, 2023 Gail Alfar15 Comments

I love taking time to soak up the genius of Tesla Master Plan 3. I think you’ll also enjoy this article as we look together at the intricate plans Tesla has for a cleaner, happier, sustainable world.
For this article, I’ll simplify the Tesla vehicle powertrain talk by Colin Campbell (VP Tesla Powertrain) for your understanding. I also talked with a computer engineer to better understand it myself and hopefully, this article will delight you!

EFFICIENCY MEANS MORE AT TESLA. DEVELOPING. MANUFACTURING. REFINING. SCALING.

When we think of vehicle efficiency, we think of how far a vehicle can drive.

At Tesla Investor Day, Campbell explained to us how Tesla vehicles go 25 – 30% further than other EVs in the same class. Tesla’s are more efficient!

He also showed that while efficiency does mean reducing how much energy the car uses, it also means how Tesla “develops, manufactures, refines and scales the powertrain for their cars.”

The Model 3 and Y powertrain is a great example of this broader meaning of efficiency.

Since Tesla launched the Model 3 in 2017 they have continuously improved the powertrain and the factory that builds it. Today, the drive unit (the engine of the car) is 20% lighter for the same amount of power. Tesla also uses 25% less “heavy rare earths” than when they started. (We’ll learn more about Tesla and their plans for rare earth use later in this article.)

The powertrain factory at Giga Texas is 75% smaller and 65% cheaper than Tesla’s original factory build in California. Tesla achieved this without making compromises in power/efficiency.

THE SCRUM IN RUGBY.

If you’re familiar with American football, the rugby scrum is analogous to a team huddle, where the attacking team regroups to plan their next play. No matter which game you are playing (rugby, football or computer project management), the idea of the scrum is the same.

Tesla has mastered the scrum.

Here’s how Campbell explained how Tesla designs the whole vehicle and entire factory together as one company,

“We have small and highly capable teams and to make a critical decision. We have the battery cell chemists, the mechanical engineers, the manufacturing engineers, the supply chain team, the automation designers, the software programmers, all in one room working together in real time. That allows us to make decisions that are best for the whole car and to make them really fast and that approach is unlike traditional automotive engineering which is really fractured.”

What Campbell described at Investor Day is a highly agile approach. This is in contrast to the legacy way of making cars.

“If you were to go buy a premium German electric car, the engineers who designed the drive inverter in that car, they did not work for that car company, they work for a contractor and at Tesla we design the entire car and the factory that built it.”

TESLA IN-HOUSE DESIGN. TRANSISTOR PACKAGES. MICROPROCESSORS.

Campbell carefully described how the inside of the charger in a Tesla has transistor packages (tiny square semiconductors on the circuit board) and every electron that moves you down the road flows through one of these packages.

Tesla designed their own custom package using a uniquely fast semiconductor: Silicon Carbide. The Silicon Carbide wafer can extract twice as much heat out of that package as what Tesla could buy off the shelf. This means that what’s inside those transistor packages can be much smaller. “Silicon carbide is an amazing semiconductor but it’s also expensive and it’s really hard to scale, so using less of it is a big win for us!”

Campbell described the process of orchestrating all the transistors to switch in the right ways as “computationally extremely intensive.” But Tesla did it, and it was done first with 4 microprocessors. And that was not good enough for Tesla. The team came up with a way to do the same job with just ONE microprocessor.

ONE MICROPROCESSOR DOES THE JOB OF FOUR.

Tesla developed its own custom microprocessor, replacing 4 microprocessors on the circuit board with one. Campbell said, “It is purpose-built for high-power electronics it’s half the cost and it does in just 1, the job of all those 4.” As a result, Tesla was able to cut both the cost and the size of the chargers in half. No other car manufacturer has this level of expertise in high-power electronics.

TESLA BUILDS CUSTOM SOFTWARE TO OPTIMIZE THE DRIVE UNIT.

In addition to the work that Tesla does in-house in hardware, they do work in-house on software.

If you take a cross-section of the Drive Unit for Model 3, there is a stator and a rotor and they’re both responsible for the core function of the drive unit, which is to convert electricity into motion.

Tesla’s custom software creates a simulation with the rotating magnetic field that is responsible for that conversion. Getting that simulation exactly right is central to the cost, weight, size, and even the sound of the drive unit.

“You can buy software that will do all of this, but our tools are faster and they’re more accurate and it was not easy to do and that allows us to quickly iterate through millions of possible driving unit designs to find the best one,” explains Campbell.

Campbell has his audience’s attention as he explains how Tesla excels because they integrate work that is often farmed out. “When you are making a new product, it’s not enough to think about the product itself you have to think about how you will make it at scale.”

At Tesla, their powertrain and powertrain manufacturing equipment are both designed under one roof. The engineers who are designing the motor are in the same room as the engineers who are designing the machine that’s going to put that motor together, and that collaboration pushes them from day 1 to design products that are not only high-performance but that are really easy to assemble.

Looking forward, vehicles made at Giga Mexico will be another big improvement.

FUTURE. HOW TESLA IS CREATING A MORE AFFORDABLE CAR.

How can the next-generation vehicle cost less to build? The next-gen vehicle will contain Silicon Carbide transistors. You might ask, “But aren’t those too expensive?” They are expensive AND Tesla figured out a way to use 75% less without compromising the performance or the efficiency of the car.

People also ask, “What about shortages of battery cell supplies?” Tesla solved this by creating a new powertrain that is compatible with any battery chemistry. This allows Tesla to have flexibility in battery sourcing.

“Aren’t drive units expensive?” They are. And Tesla’s team found a way to reduce the drive unit cost to about $1000. No other automaker is even close to that number!

FUTURE. SCALING PRODUCTION FASTER.

The bigger a factory is, the longer it takes to build. Tesla found a way to build the same number of cars from a smaller factory. Remember Master Plan 3 and the need to scale production faster? Being able to build a smaller factory faster that makes the same number of cars helps move our world towards a sustainable future much faster.

As Campbell talked, you could see Giga Texas’ production line behind him building Model Ys. “Our next powertrain factory is 50% smaller than the one that’s behind me today even though it has the same capacity. All these improvements are going to be transformative for the adoption of EVs and our ability to scale them.”

FUTURE. ELECTRIC MOTOR WITH NO RARE EARTHS.

Tesla’s next drive unit will be just as efficient and cost less to build and also will not use any rare earth materials. Campbell explains, “As the world transitions to clean energy, demand for rare earths is really increasing dramatically and not only is it going to be a little hard to meet that demand but mining that rare earth, it has environmental and health risks, so we want to do even better than this, we have designed our next drive unit which uses a permanent magnet motor to not use any rare earth materials at all.”

MASTER PLAN.

So how does all this fit into Master Plan 3? Tesla can build lower-cost products that are still efficient and compelling and they can be built at scale. Tesla will use less constrained commodities, less Silicon Carbide, and less rare earth.

Giga Mexico and other next-gen factories will be built quickly and will be more compact while also being high-output.

Tesla will build easy-to-scale powertrains all the way up to the levels that Elon Musk and Drew Baglino mentioned at the beginning of Investor Day.

Campbell ended with thanking the powertrain team, “This achievement, like all of the achievements that I mentioned today, is only possible because of the incredible people on our powertrain teams. They are absolutely committed to the cause of sustainable energy and that is why we can do with no other company can do.”

For More Information:

I’ve included Links if you want to learn more or watch Colin Campbell, (Tesla’s brilliant VP of Powertrain Engineering) discuss this on Investor’s Day at Giga Texas.

Watch Colin Campbell, Tesla VP Powertrain, discuss this at Tesla Investor Day 2023.

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – April 16, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Tesla and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization. I write this and all my articles myself without the use of AI/ChatGPT.

Tesla Solar and Megapacks. Image courtesy Tesla, Inc.

PART 2: Master Plan 3 & Investor Day. A Clean Energy Economy Is Better. (multi-part series)

March 18, 2023November 17, 2023 Gail Alfar1 Comment

In Part #1 of this series, I wrote about how Master Plan 3 was created for the investor.

The term “investor” was clarified by Elon Musk to mean “the broadest definition of investor, as in the people & life of Earth.” We read about how our current energy economy is dirty and wasteful. This is true because over 80% of global energy still comes from fossil fuels. Shockingly only ⅓ of that energy delivers useful work or heat. A sustainable energy economy is within reach and we can and should accelerate it. A beautiful, clean, and fully sustainable energy economy can be achieved quickly and in this article, you will read about how in the words of Elon Musk. All quotes are from Investor Day on March 1 at Gigafactory Texas in Austin.

Make your next car electric

^{Ultra Red Tesla Model S. Image courtesy Tesla, Inc.}

On March 1, 2023, Elon Musk stood onstage next to Drew Baglino [Director Tesla powertrain], with the production floor of Gigafactory Texas in the background. The small audience of approximately 250 people, some of whom traveled from abroad to come to Austin, gave their full attention as Elon Musk explained,

“We are going to walk through the calculations for how to create a sustainable energy civilization.

Sometimes I want to elaborate because there’s a very wide range of technical expertise out there from people who are like, you know, level nine wizards in the subject to people who do not do engineering at all.

So if you have a gasoline car, you’re converting less than a third, often maybe only 25% of the energy in the gasoline is converted into motion and the rest is turned into wasted heat that doesn’t do any good at all.

There’s a lot of energy required even to get through all of the ground to refine the oil and to transport the gasoline to the gas station. So when you look at all that, a typical gasoline car is actually going to be using less than 20%, fully considered, of the energy from the oil that actually goes into motion.

So when we see people doing calculations for what does it take to create a sustainable energy earth, they assume that the same energy amount is required for an electrified civilization versus a combustion civilization.

This is not true, because most of the energy of combustion is waste heat.”

^{Image Courtesy Tesla, Inc. Slide: Our Current State versus a Sustainable Energy Economy}

Drew Baglino added that a sustainable energy economy is easier to accomplish than a fossil fuel economy, “it’s actually half the problem statement of the fossil fuel economy.” Elon Musk, often making eye contact with his audience via live stream as well as engaging with the people attending in person, carefully explained,

“We’re being conservative here so it could be better than half. We’re trying to have assumptions that are reasonable and not overly optimistic, in fact, slightly pessimistic.

It’s really better than half but it’s easy to make the argument that we need half as much energy with an electric economy versus a combustion economy.”

How Master Plan 3 works

^{Image courtesy Tesla, Inc. Slide: “A Sustainable Energy Economy Is Within Reach & We Should Accelerate It”}

Elon Musk is known for his ability to simplify complicated things. Famous for his first principles approach, he explained the need for battery storage,

“So I think that what is needed at a very large scale that’s not currently present is a vast amount of battery energy storage. Our rough calculations are that this is about 240 Terawatt hours or 240,000 Gigawatt hours.

This is a lot of batteries but it is actually a very achievable amount. We will go into details on that. So that’s a combination of electric vehicles and stationary storage. If you’ve got solar or wind, you’ve got to store the energy when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, so we are assuming an 8:1 ratio of stored energy to power. So 30 Terawatt hours of power. Our actual capital expenditure calculation for manufacturing investment is more like 6 trillion but we made it higher to make it 10 trillion.

If you look at the total world economy it’s just under 100 trillion, so if this was spread out say over 10 years it would be 1% of the global economy. Over 20 years, it would be half a percent of the global economy. So this is not a big number relative to the global economy.

As Drew (Baglino) mentioned, you need about ½ as much energy with an electric economy versus a combustion economy. And in terms of wind and solar, how much land would be used? It’s less than .2% of the land area of earth. I think generally people don’t realize how much energy is reaching us from the sun. It’s roughly a Gigawatt per square kilometer. And the sun doesn’t shine all the time but if you multiply that by 4 to get the continuous power, 4 or 5, that gives you the land area of solar. And you can put wind and solar often in the same place so in a lot of places that currently have wind, you could put solar there and you double your energy.

You could put solar [or wind as Drew Baglino mentioned] offshore. Earth is 70% water. The point is that with a remarkably small amount of earth’s land area, we can go fully sustainable.”

Drew Baglino explained that our earth has abundant resources to accomplish a sustainable energy economy. Elon Musk, sharing a hopeful and optimistic message, said, “To emphasize that again, the electrified economy will require less mining than the current economy does. Less. not more.”

“To emphasize that again,
the electrified economy will require
less mining than the current economy does.
Less. not more.” Elon Musk

In the next article in this Multi-Part series, we will start to look at the 5 areas that will need work in order to eliminate fossil fuels. Tesla shared a preview in a slide that also showed how much each area will reduce fossil fuel use. With 35%, the largest area is to “renewably power the existing grid.” Switching to heat pumps and to electric vehicles are the 2nd and 3rd largest areas.

^{Image Courtesy Tesla, Inc. Slide: The Plan To Eliminate Fossil Fuels}

A sustainable energy economy on Mars

Elon Musk is in his element when discussing rockets! He enthusiastically shares,

“My personal opinion is that as we improve the energy density of the batteries, you’ll see all transportation go fully electric, with the exception of rockets. That’s awkward, but you can make the fuel with CO₂ and water!

You can make methane with CO₂ and water. In fact, on Mars, if we hopefully get there at some point, the atmosphere is CO₂ and there’s water ice throughout Mars so you can take the CO₂ and H₂O and turn that into CH₄ which is Methane and Oxygen.

So ultimately even rockets can be electrified.”

CONCLUSION

Empowering the world to choose sustainable energy options is within reach. With the existing technology, an affordable, reliable electric vehicle movement can take place with battery storage systems that can save and harness energy from sources like solar and wind. It’s an achievable goal – one that allows us to switch from a highly destructive fossil fuel industry to a much cleaner, kinder energy model. The investment will be well worth it, as this shift could create a healthier society with far less harmful pollutants in the air. In short, it’s now or never; let’s make this switch. Investing in clean energy not only aligns with our personal economic goals but builds towards a more balanced and stable relationship between humans and nature. I believe a beautiful, clean, and fully sustainable energy economy can be achieved quickly!

Did you miss Part #1 of this series? Here it is!

Elon Musk Talks at Investor Day. Part #1 of Multi-Part Series on Good Hope for the Future This article is Part 1 of this series that will examine the message of good hope and positivity for the future. The “investor” is considered the people & life of Earth instead of only retail and institutional investors.

^{Austin in the mist. Image Courtesy Shane Ware.}

Gail Alfar, Author, Military Veteran. Exclusive to What’s Up Tesla – March 18, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Tesla (the most American vehicle manufacturer) and Elon Musk in both making life better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.