FES&electric system batteries

On Thursday, December 8, 2016 at 10:45:29 AM UTC-5, Tom (TK) wrote:
...One of the more interesting functionalities is internet access,
which would allow the factory to access the US aircraft remotely
and even perform software fixes and upgrades from Germany.

Non-USA Antares have had this facility from beginning.
All USA Antares, including yours, already have this capability.
I wrote and installed the facilities required for USA many years ago ;-)

Unfortunately its not so useful in practice.
Poor internet connectivity at many sites makes it dodgy.
Do you want a remote update over a poor connection killing the machine?
For this and other reasons, you always need a qualified tech on site for
updates, which makes this not so useful.

For diagnostics, better is diagnostic dump to USB.
USA Antares, including yours, have had this for years.
You may guess who wrote and installed it ;-)

See ya, Dave

Interesting that while current Kokam batteries for FES cost 8000 euros (2000eur/kWh), at the same time Tesla is building batteries costing under 200 eur/kWh. Assembling FES battery with new Tesla cells would cost one tenth, even doubling or tripling that would still keep it quite affordable. Why use so expensive battery?

On Thursday, 23 February 2017 13:27:10 UTC+2, krasw wrote:
Why use so expensive battery?

Because we all know that money makes aircraft fly.
If we don't pay lots of money things won't fly.

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 5:27:10 AM UTC-6, krasw wrote:
Interesting that while current Kokam batteries for FES cost 8000 euros (2000eur/kWh), at the same time Tesla is building batteries costing under 200 eur/kWh. Assembling FES battery with new Tesla cells would cost one tenth, even doubling or tripling that would still keep it quite affordable. Why use so expensive battery?

I think this is where Bob K or Darryl R inserts pictures of Flaming Tesslas....

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 6:40:38 PM UTC+3, Steve Leonard wrote:
On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 5:27:10 AM UTC-6, krasw wrote:
Interesting that while current Kokam batteries for FES cost 8000 euros (2000eur/kWh), at the same time Tesla is building batteries costing under 200 eur/kWh. Assembling FES battery with new Tesla cells would cost one tenth, even doubling or tripling that would still keep it quite affordable. Why use so expensive battery?

I think this is where Bob K or Darryl R inserts pictures of Flaming Tesslas...

Pretty sure the percentage of Teslas going up in flames is no higher than for petrol powered cars, and only after crashes not before. We're not talking Note 7's here.

Tesla is CLAIMING to be building batteries costing under 200 eur/kWh...

At 21:59 23 February 2017, wrote:
Tesla is CLAIMING to be building batteries costing under 200
eur/kWh...


Here in EASA land I think there are substantial cost
implications to certifying "new(er)" batteries in an existing
certified FES sailplane (for Ultralights it's different). As current
FES performance looks pretty adequate why would the
manufacturers do it; it's not like there has been any radical
evolution in battery performance.
Dave Walsh

On Thursday, 23 February 2017 23:59:50 UTC+2, wrote:
Tesla is CLAIMING to be building batteries costing under 200 eur/kWh...

I'm sure the size of their project dictates that they can not be much off that price...

I think it's a couple things.

1- as soon as you add "aircraft" to a part description, the price goes up. That little stamp on a part has to be backed up by a mountain of paperwork, thus some of the price increase.

2-economy of scale. How many FES battery packs will be made in a year? How many Tesla battery packs will be made in a year? We should know that the more pieces made in a given time frame drops the per piece price.

With Tesla building their own plant, they should have a better handle on manufacturing costs and quality. Time will tell though.

Tesla makes all their profits off carbon credit games. Thus Tesla pricing might not match reality.