LFP Batteries: Pros and Cons as Elon Shifts Some Teslas to LFP

There have been reports in the EU about terrible charging speeds in cold weather on MIC SR+s. There was a story that Tesla has fixed it. Would someone with a MIC SR like to clarify if the problem has been fixed.

You missed cold charging, all common commercially available LiFePO4 cells are damaged by charging when the cells are under 0°C . Some current LiFe battery manufacturers build heat strips into their packs to combat this. Tesla could probably use the octovalve HVAC system to warm their pack but the damage from cold charging should be mentioned as a Con. It's also important to mention that discharging LiFe is similar to the common Li-ion chemistries in the cold.

Patented NanoOne Technology is demonstrating a gamer changing result in Total Cost of Ownership, TCO, for hardened maritime, military, and utility applications. Atomic level tech creates a single uniform crystal for Nickel. For EV, the statement Million Mile Battery relates to a higher performance, lower TCO, cost-effective innovation.

What are the relative weights of LFP and LIP batteries? How will these weights affect battery choices for planned long range vehicles, such as trucks and 18 wheelers?

Non-toxic??? Are you sure about that???

I own a SR+ with LFP battery in Europe and the charging speeds went up after an update from 30kW to 100kW with my car. The range issues it has when the weather is colder is really awful though.

I received my car mid-December 2020 and can only drive it for 175-200 km per full charge when below 10 C. Above 10 C it goes up to 250 km. When above 15 C it seems to go up to 300 km.

When fully charged it states 416 km of range. I know that is WLTP so not real.

When talking to Tesla engineers they told me that range will improve in coming updates though.

I calculated one time what I lost in kW from the battery that was not used for driving. It was about 10kW when it was below 10 C. So I believe this is leaking away towards the heater. Unfortunately my car was build without the heat pump, so it eats up a massive amount of my range.

Still happy with the car though. :)

The first batch of LFP cars in Europe came from China. They do not have a heat pump.

I have driven in both -3°C and 20°C and in both cases I loose about 10 kW that are not being used for driving.

Tesla cannot see anything wrong with the car. And think it will become better after a software update. I guess I have to wait and see.

@Peter Markert : You're not alone. Many TM3 LFP are complaining of the same thing. The heater even without heat pump is not the real cause. LFP batteries are operating very poorly in cold condititions. Lithium batteries in general have less capacity in winter but LFP is much worse than NMC or NCA. That's why the auto industry prefers nickel-cobalt batteries. In my opinion Tesla made a huge mistake by choosing low cost LFP for the TM3. Software updates will not "fix" the physics. I think it could have a LFP-gate when people will fully realize the cold weather issue.

Aren't LFP batteries also lithium-ion batteries with just different chemistry. I think you are the one confused here.

This article tries to draw a distinction between "Li-ion" and "LFP" batteries. But "Li-ion" is an umbrella term that covers many different Li-ion chemistries, including LFP. LFP batteries ARE Li-ion batteries, as are LCO, NCA, NMC, LCO, LMO, and LTO.batteries.

LFP batteries haven't been "overlooked." They've been around for a while, but suffered from serious shortcomings (low conductivity, low tap density, etc.) that made them less suitable for EV's until only recently, when improved cathode materials and processing has largely overcome that hurdle. But they still have lower energy density, lower charging rates, poor cold-weather performance, and real-world lifespan is still unknown.

This is wrong, the old model 3 was 162mph 3.5 sec while lfp is 100mph and 6 sec. Also phosphate prices will increase.

This is the wild west of battery science and innovation change making it work today is highly likely not what it will look like tomorrow ! There is a reason Musk just bought into a nickel producer and that I believe is the advent of silicon which will be the big game changer ! There are producers that I believe are very close to cheap silicon production that gives 10 fold improvement density, charge time, range etc

There are issues with LiFe in the cold, however, these must be manageable as the vast majority of BYD and many other Chinese manufactured electric buses in China, which can get very cold, are LiFe batteries. There are tens of thousands of such buses over at least ten years. If there were serious problems, they'd be well known by now.