Are Supercapacitors About to Make Tesla Obsolete?

Tesla's growth has been built on its pioneering battery technology but they're slow to charge, have limited lifetimes and are heavy. The latest research on supercapacitors does away with all of that and may mean Tesla is a losing bet

[sallerc]

Expected to become commercial in 3-5 years... Haven't we heard this before.

[kathyfausett]

If this technology was ready for production, I'm sure Elon would have been all over it. Meanwhile, he's actually doing something, rather than just talking about it. Big difference.

[ctuna]

I would think Tesla will just put in the best Technology available . I think Elon has already expressed interest into the Super Caps.They are not known for standing still or being Luddites.

[faelwolf]

Tesla is currently investing heavily into both the new silicon batteries, as well as supercapacitor tech. I don't think they will be left behind when the technology matures, and instead, will likely take advantage of the new tech to make a major inroad into the car market. Supercapacitors might just be the tipping point for electric cars, once they can get the charge desity high enough. They are also investing heavily into off-grid power systems for homes, their new solar roof tiles are causing quite a stir. Coupled with the new power storage tech, I'd be far more worried about the future of power company stocks if I held any, than Tesla stock, IMO.

[Sup-jzow]

Tesla just bought Maxwell, a ultracapacitor manufacturer, today. They're embracing and evolving with change. Good for them

[bythomes]

Tesla will not become obsolete because it's an awesome car and it has tons to go to even be considered as penetrating the market. The car also has a ton of tech besides the battery like Autopilot and the charge time is less then 30 minutes (never 90 minutes even from completely empty at the SC's) at the TONS of supercharger locations strategically placed along main fairways. Add to this the Model 3 shipping at the end of this year for $35k and it's not longer too expensive! Petrol isn't cheap when compared to electric charge and even less so when you have solar panels as I do. Who is also to say that Tesla can't adapt and build supercapacitors in the gigafactories "if" this became viable? It's still an electricity delivering device!!!

[erict]

I know capacitor has high ability to be charged and dischage, but it s also has high self discharge which is a disadvantage compare to batteries.

[billtruttschel]

The graph shown at 1:10 is misleading because the vertical axis does not begin at 0.

[valhallaholsopple]

The clickbait question in your title doesn't make any sense. If a supercapacitor can be developed all motor vehicle companies would adopt that technology for their vehicles. Tesla is not going to be obsolete.

[wiggysshop]

have you found any information on what the energy density of those new super Capacitors is suppose to be? I have seen a lot of articles about them but none of them mention what they expect the energy density to be.

[Les_Hewitt]

Super capacitors have been know about for a long time. The problem is finding a way to produce a single one atom thick layer of atomic-scale hexagonal lattice made of carbon atoms. It hasn't been done yet in a way to make it in great enough quantities to mass produce large amounts of batteries. Also filling any battery with huge amounts of power in just a few seconds as said in this video is going to need huge power supplies. Very high voltages or very high current. Think about it. I'm not sure if people would be safe using to such a thing.
Tesla is doing the right thing and using the technology that has been proven to work for years in phones, laptops etc.
When in the near future new types of batteries become viable products, I'm sure Tesla will have no problem converting it's gigafactories to produce the new battery types.

[jeremyventurino]

Supercapacitors could compliment batteries but there's one major factor you didn't mention in the video. Even if you could charge supercapacitors much faster, where and how are you gonna manage that amount of current in such a short time? Because charging 100kw is no small feat. There are some obvious restrictions in the size of cable used for charging.

[marioavgherino]

What's your point? How would a better battery negatively affect Tesla? It seems to me that you're just another "Tesla Hater"

[kjamison]

Another fine product from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation!

[seaplaneguy]

The energy density is 5 w-h/kg. 15, 000 lbs/gallon equivalent??? A gallon of Diesel fuel is 6.8 lbs. It need to be 200-500 times better.... before it can be competitive.

[CraigHocker]

This video only quotes Richard Kaner. Kaner has a startup company that is promoting this idea that came from basic material research in his UCLA lab. Whether that company lives up to the hype is a huge question mark. There is a lot of missing details. If and that's a big IF, it works out, it's very concievable that Tesla's battery plant could convert to the new tech. The hurdle wouldn't be technical so much as legal, licensing, etc.

[kramrle]

I find supercaps a promising technology. Where i see an issue is with charging them. Aussume i want to charge 90 kWh in 1 minute, it would require a 5400 kW power feed to make that happen.
As i normally only need a partial fill on trips and can also charge less fast this figure could be as low as 2000kW or even less. Thats 2000kW for one car. For 2 it would be 4000kW. At Tesla Superchargers they charge with 130kW max.
The challenge will thus to supply the required amounts of energy to the supercap chargers.

[dansanger]

Yes, energy-dense supercapacitors are the holy grail. After searching for a long time, nobody's found either one.

[JONOVID]

supercapacitors play a big part as I wonder how long it will take road transport to catch up with aviation. to see piston engines replaced by gas electric turboshaft supercapacitor set up. with twin turbo out of phase acoustic noise cancellation with exhaust heat recuperators as batteries still have poor energy density compared to liquid fuels.

[tadwyn]

When or if we get high density supercapacitors, where will we charge them? Currently solar panels are cheap as certain overseas markets are dumping them below production cost. This will change either by tariff or because all of our plants in the usa are bankrupt. Most electric power comes from coal or increasingly natural gas. In 2016 15% of energy came from renewable resources, 65% from coal or Natural gas, and the majority of the rest from nuclear. So less than 15% of energy used by electric cars is from clean sources. Capacitor or battery, most electric cars have a long extension cord going back to a polluting plant. I DO expect this to change in the future but not for a good while unless other breakthroughs are made.