Mach-E battery tray and cell teardown - by Sandy Munro

BillK · Jul 23, 2021

Here it is, Sandy Munro's MME battery cell teardown.

ZuleMME · Jul 23, 2021

Yep, watched that this morning. Pretty neat stuff in the design. I didn't entirely understand how that thermal plate in the bottom seals the coolant from flowing up into the battery area. Perhaps there was some sealent laid down all around the sides to seal it up?

Scooby24 · Jul 23, 2021

Love these. As a computer guy who has played around a lot with cooling solutions this seems like a very inefficient design to transfer heat with a single piece of aluminum between cells. I can only imagine it won't be a consistent temp across the top and bottom of the pouch and there will be hot spots. Not particularly robust imo.

Jimmy2 · Jul 23, 2021

I've been waiting to see what the LG batteries looked like, pretty interesting. They certainly appear to be well cooled. Glad Sandy and Ben finally acknowledged LG as the maker of these batteries. I'm wondering moving forward, if there will be a switch from LG to SK for the Mustang? Or will it just be for the Lightning? Ford has apparently invited Sandy to come take a look at the new Lightning.

buckweet1980 · Jul 23, 2021

ZuleMME said:
Yep, watched that this morning. Pretty neat stuff in the design. I didn't entirely understand how that thermal plate in the bottom seals the coolant from flowing up into the battery area. Perhaps there was some sealent laid down all around the sides to seal it up?

Wondered this myself too.. It doesn't seem like they destroyed it getting the plate up if there was sealant ... Soo how?

theo1000 · Jul 23, 2021

Scooby24 said:
I can only imagine it won't be a consistent temp across the top and bottom of the pouch and there will be hot spots. Not particularly robust imo.

I don't agree. This design have been through the furnace and torture tested for 12+ years on the Volt. It is interesting you think there maybe hot spots, would the heat transfer paste not mitigate that. The coolant flow is a lot more substantial as MachE uses a separate coolant with heat exchange from refrigerant. Almost no issues. The cooling plates have proven to be very effective. The MachE is based on this Volt design for good reasons. It is very very reliable. This is a big part of the reason I bought it. For this pedigree.

Now the Bolt is under a recall for fires, but looks like they may have pushed the top reserve too low . Esp. the 2017-2019 models. 62kwh nominal with 60kwh usable. Compare to the Volt with 16kwh nominal with 10 kwh usable 2010 model. and the MachE ER with 98kwh and 88kwh usable.

theo1000 · Jul 23, 2021

buckweet1980 said:
Wondered this myself too.. It doesn't seem like they destroyed it getting the plate up if there was sealant ... Soo how?

I could be wrong but that cooling tray looks double walled and the dimples acting as spacers. The conductive paste then contacts the aluminum heat transfer plate with more conductive paste transferring heat to the aluminum heat transfer plate. This is how the Volt was constructed. The coolant never enters the between battery channels. This is why the Mache has those long hoses outside the battery.

I wish Munro would go into more detail on how it operates. Esp. coolant flow rates, input and output temperatures, flow speeds, types of coolant, etc.

ZuleMME · Jul 23, 2021

theo1000 said:
I could be wrong but that cooling tray looks double walled and the dimples acting as spacers. The conductive paste then contacts the aluminum heat transfer plate with more conductive paste transferring heat to the aluminum heat transfer plate. This is how the Volt was constructed. The coolant never enters the between battery channels. This is why the Mache has those long hoses outside the battery.

I wish Munro would go into more detail on how it operates. Esp. coolant flow rates, input and output temperatures, flow speeds, types of coolant, etc.

That's their "product" that they sell. The youtube videos are a extra revenue stream and get publicity for their actual reports I imagine.

That said, so you're saying the aluminum thermal plate is actually double walled, like a vacuum thermos that the inside channel is the flow medium? That makes a lot more sense! Thanks! (Edit: On re-watching the video I can see that now, I think you're exactly right. So the only seals needed are in the inlet/outlet connectors which are likely a press fit washer...)

snikt · Jul 23, 2021

theo1000 said:
I don't agree. This design have been through the furnace and torture tested for 12+ years on the Volt. It is interesting you think there maybe hot spots, would the heat transfer paste not mitigate that. The coolant flow is a lot more substantial as MachE uses a separate coolant with heat exchange from refrigerant. Almost no issues. The cooling plates have proven to be very effective. The MachE is based on this Volt design for good reasons. It is very very reliable. This is a big part of the reason I bought it. For this pedigree.

Now the Bolt is under a recall for fires, but looks like they may have pushed the top reserve too low . Esp. the 2017-2019 models. 62kwh nominal with 60kwh usable. Compare to the Volt with 16kwh nominal with 10 kwh usable 2010 model. and the MachE ER with 98kwh and 88kwh usable.

The 2021 M3 has an 82KWH pack with 77KWH usable, the pre 2021 had a 79 KWH pack with 73.5 KWH usable

That comes out to about 94% usable compared to 96.7% on that 2017-2019 Bolt.

MME is 89.7% usable

BillK · Jul 23, 2021

theo1000 said:
I could be wrong but that cooling tray looks double walled and the dimples acting as spacers. The conductive paste then contacts the aluminum heat transfer plate with more conductive paste transferring heat to the aluminum heat transfer plate. This is how the Volt was constructed. The coolant never enters the between battery channels. This is why the Mache has those long hoses outside the battery.

I wish Munro would go into more detail on how it operates. Esp. coolant flow rates, input and output temperatures, flow speeds, types of coolant, etc.

This is correct. The cooling plate is two sheets welded together, The coolant travels between those two sheets.

BillK · Jul 23, 2021

theo1000 said:
I don't agree. This design have been through the furnace and torture tested for 12+ years on the Volt. It is interesting you think there maybe hot spots, would the heat transfer paste not mitigate that. The coolant flow is a lot more substantial as MachE uses a separate coolant with heat exchange from refrigerant. Almost no issues. The cooling plates have proven to be very effective. The MachE is based on this Volt design for good reasons. It is very very reliable. This is a big part of the reason I bought it. For this pedigree.

Now the Bolt is under a recall for fires, but looks like they may have pushed the top reserve too low . Esp. the 2017-2019 models. 62kwh nominal with 60kwh usable. Compare to the Volt with 16kwh nominal with 10 kwh usable 2010 model. and the MachE ER with 98kwh and 88kwh usable.

The Gen. 1 Volt battery has the equivalent of the coolant plate between every two cells. In the Gen/ 2 I believe it's between every 4. It works very well in both cars but is complex. bulky, and expensive. Love my Volt.

Volt cells are almost square. the MME cells are wider and shorter so the top of the cell is not far from the bottom. Using one heat transfer plate between every two cells should work well. There will be a temperature gradient from top to bottom but that will be very slight and there should be no hot spots.

Aluminum is phenomenal at transferring heat. With even relatively thin aluminum you wont find any part of a sheet much hotter than any other part. Thickness matters, but not as much as contact area, and contact area on those cells is huge. Far more contact area than on current Tesla cells, which most people feel are adequately cooled.

EELinneman · Jul 23, 2021

I found the video pretty eye opening. While some people may critique all the hoses and 5 cooling trays, this also makes battery servicing cheaper and more granular. They can swap out a module where the Tesla is the entire battery pack epoxied together. That may make the manufacturing cheaper, it is going to lead to more of the $16K repairs which are actually replacements.

I'm surprised that Sandy didn't bitch about the bolts holding the modules together, but then again they replaced the loose nut on the Bolt with one in the plate. Not everything can be a snap after all!

Regarding the thermal characteristics of pouches vs wound cells. Both are going to have temperature differences that are reflected by distance from the cooling hardware. I'm guessing that this has not been the cause of failures to date. It's more likely chemical or physical within the batteries themselves.

Scooby24 · Jul 23, 2021

theo1000 said:
I don't agree. This design have been through the furnace and torture tested for 12+ years on the Volt. It is interesting you think there maybe hot spots, would the heat transfer paste not mitigate that. The coolant flow is a lot more substantial as MachE uses a separate coolant with heat exchange from refrigerant. Almost no issues. The cooling plates have proven to be very effective. The MachE is based on this Volt design for good reasons. It is very very reliable. This is a big part of the reason I bought it. For this pedigree.

Now the Bolt is under a recall for fires, but looks like they may have pushed the top reserve too low . Esp. the 2017-2019 models. 62kwh nominal with 60kwh usable. Compare to the Volt with 16kwh nominal with 10 kwh usable 2010 model. and the MachE ER with 98kwh and 88kwh usable.

What are your thoughts on the HV battery issues several have experienced especially in hotter regions like Texas?

timbop · Jul 23, 2021

EELinneman said:
I found the video pretty eye opening. While some people may critique all the hoses and 5 cooling trays, this also makes battery servicing cheaper and more granular. They can swap out a module where the Tesla is the entire battery pack epoxied together. That may make the manufacturing cheaper, it is going to lead to more of the $16K repairs which are actually replacements.

The bigger issue is what to do with the packs when they are finally unusable as even a powerwall module. Cutting open and recycling thousands of individual epoxied-together little batteries is going to make recycling a lot harder compared to cutting open a couple hundred pouch cells.

EELinneman · Jul 23, 2021

timbop said:
The bigger issue is what to do with the packs when they are finally unusable as even a powerwall module. Cutting open and recycling thousands of individual epoxied-together little batteries is going to make recycling a lot harder compared to cutting open a couple hundred pouch cells.

Future Elon will deal with that. In the meantime, he's making money!

Mach-E battery tray and cell teardown - by Sandy Munro

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