Munro Live
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2020–2021
10:56 · 317K views · May 8, 2020
Munro Live's Model Y episode 36 has Sandy Munro walk through the disassembled Tesla Octovalve and heat pump system. He explains how the components are made and what each one does.
HN cites it as a deeper look at Tesla's integrated thermal management system, from a commentator respected for auto industry knowledge.
3 comments from Hacker News
this video (octopump) It's not that heat pumps won't work, it's about pump technology. This is actually the thermal management system, used for both heating and cooling. Sandy generally has great commentary on the auto industry. He's quite genuine Every auto company misleads, at least Tesla is being a leader The point about accident rates is in context of unwitting beta testers. There are many drivers on the road, many of who make the road unsafer. That fact should also be considered when discussing road safety. If FSD beta is better on average, then the roads are getting stepwise safer.
> That's a function of battery size. The maximum battery size of the current Kona, Niro, and Soul is 64 kWh. Batteries cost money. The Kona, Niro, and Soul are all less expensive than the top end Teslas. The Model 3 LR battery size is 75 kWh. Are you telling me a 9 kWh difference say ~15% is the sole reason for an almost 25% increase in range? If it is only a matter of the battery size, the range would be linear. It is a function of battery size, total mass, and efficiency. A more or less efficient heat pump is absolutely a defining part of this equation, especially in the cold, as the press release you linked stated. It is why the longer, wider, and taller Model Y has only slightly less range than the Model 3 when it should have less due to aerodynamics and increased mass. > Not the current model. Sorry, you are right. The 2020 Kia Soul EV range is 243 miles. The google card result is out of date. > Sure there is. Tesla used to be the #1 BEV maker in Europe. Now they're #3. That's competition for you: I was referring to competition when it comes to overall efficiency and range. The ID.3 and any EVs built on VW's EV chassis are the closest competition to Tesla has in that area. When it comes to price, it isn't hard to beat Tesla so you're right on this, but I wasn't being specific enough. > But none of this answers the original question. In what way is Tesla's heat pump better than Hyundai's? This segment dives much deeper into the octovalve / heat pump for you to see: [VIDEO
- Mega Castings, casting have been used before, but never at the size Tesla does. Tesla has costume co-designed machines and they developed their own alloy to make it work. See: [LINK] - Structural Battery Cell (Packs are structural in some cars, not cells) Eventually these two things together will basically be the main part of the car. This is nothing like anybody else does it: [LINK] - Fully integrated heating/cooling system 'Octovalve' ( this video ) - Unifying chips to central computer - Stainless Steel Exoskeleton You can see a full breakdown of a last year Model Y here (same guy that did this interview with Elon, was very critical during Model 3 and impressed now): [LINK] That is of course only for cars, the improvement in battery production that Tesla has made are arguably more interesting. A whole video series on this: [LINK]