Back in September of last year, Tesla had its Battery Day presentation (full video below). In January of this year, Electrek wrote an article about the Tesla structural battery. So why am I writing about this now? The structural battery pack was just a gleam in Elon Musk’s eye at that time, but soon, there will be cars that incorporate the new design. Here’s what you should think about if you’re considering buying a Model S Plaid or a Cybertruck with the structural battery pack.
As Elon said during the presentation, the structural battery pack was inspired by the airline industry. They used to put gas tanks in the wings of airliners. The tanks added weight. More weight meant more fuel needed to fly. Eventually, the aircraft manufacturers figured out that they could save weight if the wings were the gas tanks. They saved weight that way. It’s the same with battery packs. Right now, there are battery cells that are put together in modules. The modules add weight. Then the modules are put together into a large battery pack. That adds more weight. Then all that stuff is put into the structure. More weight means less range.
Tesla engineers figured out that they could save lots of weight if they eliminated modules and if the battery pack was the structure. They do that by making a honeycomb structure with all the wiring and cooling coils inside it. Then they drop in the 4680 cells and epoxy them to the honeycomb structure. For those of you who are not aware, the designation, 4680 refers to the 46mm diameter of the battery cells and the 80mm height of the Tesla cells. Those battery cells are larger than the ones currently in use by all previously made Teslas so they store more power in each cell. For comparison, visualize the current Tesla battery cells being like AA batteries and the 4680 cells being like D batteries. Remember D batteries?
The following picture is from the article in Electrek cited above. You can appreciate the honeycomb pattern of the pack, a structure known for strength and light weight. The coolant loops are built into the sides of the pack.
So saving weight, stronger cells, less of them. More battery, less other stuff. It’s all good, right? Maybe.
Here’s the bad part.
If the car gets in an accident and the battery pack is breached, you can’t just take out the old pack and drop in another pack. That might not matter because chances are pretty good that an accident bad enough to damage the battery pack will total the car. From an individual’s perspective, that’s why you get insurance. But there are other considerations if you care about the environment you’re leaving to my grandchildren.
Batteries should be recycled. So far, they’re not designed for recycling. With technology at its current state, it’s cheaper to mine new materials than it is to recycle the materials from used batteries. The ability to recycle gets worse when the batteries are epoxied into a big honeycomb structure. I’m not a chemical engineer so I can’t offer any suggestions about how battery cells could be designed to make recycling cheaper than mining new materials, but they should be designed that way.
The other bad thing about the structural battery pack is that cells don’t all deteriorate at the same rate. With the current battery packs, bad cells can be detected and switched out for good cells to rejuvenate the range of an old Tesla. That won’t be feasible with the structural battery pack. That may or may not be important. It depends on whether the cells last as long as the rest of the car or not. Time will tell, but it’s something to think about if you plan to keep your car for the million miles that Tesla claims their cars are designed to last.
Here is Tesla's 'Battery Day' presentation. If you care exclusively about the structural battery, you can jump to the 1 hour, 19 minute mark.
In an undocumented change in Tesla update 2024.20 and later, Tesla has added a minor, but privacy-focused change to its software. Tesla has a user privacy-first focused policy, which aligns with the expansion of user privacy changes.
Location Privacy
Since late 2023 (update 2023.38), Tesla has been showing a small location icon at the top of the screen any time the vehicle’s location is being accessed, either by Tesla or a third-party app.
This includes someone using the Tesla app, which displays the vehicle’s location on a map. However, as of update 2024.20 and later, Tesla is now expanding the information shown.
Previously, when the icon was tapped, it would display a general message explaining why the icon was appearing. The message stated:
“This icon appears when an app requests your vehicle's live location data. You can turn off sharing anytime in Controls > Safety > Allow Mobile Access, including all Tesla app access. When this setting is on, your vehicle communicates directly with the Tesla app and other apps, but Tesla doesn't track your location.”
The same text is still displayed, but now boldly says, “This icon appears when an app requests your vehicle’s life location data.”.
More importantly, Tesla now displays the service that is accessing the vehicle’s location (h/t DriveTeslaCanada). So if someone opens the Tesla app, the vehicle will now display that the vehicle’s location is being accessed by the “Tesla Mobile App.” In addition, it appears to also display which Tesla driver or account is viewing the location of the vehicle. If it’s a third-party app or service accessing the vehicle’s location, Tesla will display the name of the registered third-party app.
Disabling Location Sharing
Tesla states that you can still turn off sharing in the same location as before (Controls > Safety > Allow Mobile Access), but doing so prevents many features of the Tesla app from working. If you use a third-party service, the location information is also tied to gathering detailed data on the vehicle, making it an “all or nothing” option.
If you have a service request active, Tesla Service may also ask you to re-enable Location Services so that Mobile Service can find your vehicle.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a history of which apps have accessed your vehicle’s location over a certain period. The location icon and detailed information are only available for a few seconds when the icon is displayed.
Rimac, the company behind the Rimac Nevera electric hypercar, has announced that it intends to produce a robotaxi, and it looks quite similar to Tesla’s concepts. Much of what we’ve heard about Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi, the Cybercab, is featured in Rimac’s autonomous vehicle. From the two seats to the airy interior and the center-screen-focused interior, it’s all here, although there are significant differences as well. Rimac’s prototype, called Verne, was revealed on Wednesday, June 26th.
Verne Robotaxi
Verne will include a 43
MotorTrend
The Verne is expected to begin operation in 2026 and is a two-seater robotaxi using Mobileye’s LiDAR technology. The vehicle is expected to be a level 4 autonomous vehicle, which means it would still require remote support for handling complex situations, similar to Waymo’s work in San Franciso.
The Verne has a 43” display, and 17 speakers, and is supposedly designed to emulate “a room on wheels”, with an inside-out design concept. Interestingly, rather than regular doors, the Verne has doors that swing forward horizontally, along with a keypad-based entry system.
A smaller screen between the front seats lets you control certain aspects of the vehicle
MotorTrend
Rimac says they have signed agreements to launch in 11 cities in the EU, the UK, and the Middle East. They have also mentioned they are negotiating contracts with 30 more cities worldwide.
Rimac also showed off images of its robotaxi app and a concept building for its robotaxis – presumably a charging and service hub.
The verne will feature sliding doors, a lot like a minivan
MotorTrend
Comparing Rimac’s Robotaxi to Tesla’s
Although Tesla has yet to reveal the Cybercab, there are several things Tesla has already talked about for their upcoming robotaxi. One key difference between Rimac’s vision and Tesla’s is that Tesla appears to be chasing the cheapest possible transport, with Tesla previously touting ride prices that would rival bus ticket prices. While Rimac appears to focus more on an ideal experience. While everyone loves extra luxury, at the end of the day, price usually wins.
The Rimac robotaxi app
MotorTrend
One example is Tesla’s single center screen, compared to Rimac’s two screens. In addition to the viewable 43” center display, which presumably is not a touch-screen, Rimac has a separate screen and controls between both passenger seats. Tesla’s approach appears to focus on a single screen, with the user controlling much of the car’s control such as music and climate through Tesla’s robotaxi app.
Another example is Rimac’s idea of including an entry pad and screen on the outside of the vehicle for passenger to be able to unlock the vehicle. Tesla’s approach to unlocking a vehicle is expected to rely on temporary keys that are tied to user’s phones leveraging ultra wideband, a lot like how Tesla’s phone keys work today on newer vehicles.
Tesla’s approach to autonomy is also drastically different than Mobileye’s, which relies on radar, LiDAR and more cameras than Tesla’s Autopilot suite today.
Viability
This announcement from Rimac is a bit of an oddity. As a company, Rimac has produced less than 150 vehicles in their short lifespan – all hand-designed and hand-produced Rimac Nevara hypercars. Their ability to scale to produce more than a handful of these Verne robotaxis, while visually appealing, is questionable at best.
On the same front, Rimac recently received a $200M Euro grant from the EU as part of a package to develop an economic recovery plan for Croatia. Rimac has also received $80M Euros in funding from Hyundai and Kia – but that was to collaborate on a high-performance fuel cell electric vehicle, and a high-performance EV sports car.
The exterior of the Verne robotaxi
MotorTrend
Beyond that, Rimac has never done any work with autonomy – the self-driving tech that is running the Verne is entirely based on the outsourced work from Mobileye. It seems that the Verne will serve as Mobileye’s real-life test on whether its technology can be integrated into a Robotaxi platform on its own.
Tesla previously used Mobileye’s technology for its own autonomy during its inception years (AP 1) but quickly moved on towards using its own vision-based camera tech instead.
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![Rimac Announces 'Verne' Robotaxi - Comparing it to Tesla's Upcoming Robotaxi [Photos + Video]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/robotaxi/rimac-verne/rimac-verne-6.jpeg/a20efe2509046bbdfc6377ee56ac4fa8/rimac-verne-6.jpg)
