Between CEO Elon Musk’s typically erratic antics, strident competitors from current business titans, and a public that’s nonetheless not absolutely bought on the thought of touring through electrical cost, Tesla’s highway to prominence has not been a easy one. But dealing with a federal investigation into its driver help techniques, is much from the most important roadblock the corporate has navigated. As journalist Tim Higgins explains in his new e book, Power Play, again within the early aughts, Tesla’s engineering staff needed to overcome an excellent more durable problem: preserving the primary iterations of its EVs from randomly exploding.

From the e book POWER PLAY: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century by Tim Higgins, revealed within the US on August 3, 2021 by Doubleday, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, and within the UK on August 5, 2021 by WH Allen. Copyright © 2021 by Tim Higgins.

A panicked letter from LG Chem arrived at Tesla with a dire demand: Return its batteries.

Just as Tesla was proving it may craft a lithium-ion battery pack by itself, the battery business was grappling with the hazard that cells posed after they have been dealt with incorrectly. AC Propulsion had discovered this the exhausting approach months earlier, in considered one of an growing variety of incidents that despatched shudders by the battery business. En route from Los Angeles to Paris, a cargo of AC Propulsion’s batteries caught fireplace because it was being loaded onto a FedEx airplane whereas it refueled in Memphis, triggering an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and prompting considerations about find out how to transport batteries sooner or later. Personal electronics corporations, reminiscent of Apple Inc., have been recalling gadgets with lithium-ion batteries out of concern they may overheat and catch fireplace. In 2004 and 2005, Apple recalled greater than 150,000 laptops — with batteries made by LG Chem.

When LG Chem realized it had bought a lot of its batteries to a Silicon Valley startup that deliberate to make use of all of them for a single gadget — a automobile, because it occurred — its authorized division despatched a letter demanding the cells be returned. The battery maker didn’t wish to be related to a doubtlessly fiery experiment.

[Tesla’s first CEO, Martin] Eberhard ignored the request. He had little alternative. His wager that Tesla would have the ability to discover a prepared battery provider was proving more durable to cowl than anticipated. Without these batteries, there may not be a second probability to get extra.

Amid all the consideration on lithium-ion batteries, [Tesla Co-Founder/CTO, JB] Straubel thought again to his former home in LA, the place he and [Tesla employee number 7, Gene] Berdichevsky celebrated the thought of an electrical automobile by setting cells afire. If struck with a hammer, they placed on fairly a present. Cars have been at all times at risk of that type of influence, however there was additionally a extra insidious menace. He started to marvel what would possibly occur if one of many cells within the tightly packed cluster that may type a automobile’s battery pack acquired too heat.

One day in the summertime of 2005, he and Berdichevsky determined to seek out out. With the workplace cleared out for the day, they went to the car parking zone with a brick of cells — a cluster of batteries glued collectively. They wrapped one of many cells with a wire that may permit them to warmth it remotely. Then, from a protected distance, they flicked the heater on. The particular person cell rapidly rose to greater than 266 levels Fahrenheit (130 levels Celsius), inflicting the battery to flash right into a blinding flame because the temperature spiked to 1,472 levels, then explode altogether, sending the remaining pores and skin of the battery into the sky like a rocket. Then one other cell within the pack caught fireplace, launching into the air. Soon all the cells have been on fireplace. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Straubel acknowledged the implications of his novice pyrotechnics. If an incident just like the one he cooked up have been to occur within the wild, it may spell the top for Tesla. The subsequent day, after they disclosed their experiment to Eberhard, they confirmed him the scorched pavement, pitted with holes from the evening earlier than. Eberhard urged them to be extra cautious, however he couldn’t deny that extra testing was wanted. He gathered the staff at his rural home on the hills above Silicon Valley for extra experiments. This time, they dug a pit and put a brick of cells in it, then lined it with plexiglass. They heated one of many cells and once more the batteries ignited, inflicting a series of explosions. Straubel had been proper: this wasn’t good. They wanted outdoors assist to know precisely what they have been coping with — the staff wanted battery consultants.

Days later, a small group of battery consultants have been gathered with what at first appeared like a manageable message: Yes, even one of the best battery producers produced a random cell that may have a defect, inflicting it to brief and catch fireplace. But the percentages have been distant. “It happens really, really infrequently,” one of many consultants stated. “I mean like between one in a million and one in ten million cells.”

But Tesla deliberate to place about 7,000 cells in a single automobile. Sitting close to Straubel, Berdichevsky pulled out his calculator and computed the probability {that a} cell in considered one of their automobiles would possibly catch fireplace by probability. “Guys, that’s like between one in 150 and one in 1,500 cars,” he stated.

And not solely would they be churning out automobiles with faulty batteries that, if ignited, may set off a series response, however their automobiles could possibly be detonating within the garages of the richest of the wealthy—burning down mansions and lighting up native TV information. The temper within the room shifted. The questions turned extra pressing: Was there something that could possibly be performed to keep away from faulty cells?

Nope. Random cells have been at all times going to get too sizzling and spark thermal runaway — principally an explosion sparked by overheating.

Straubel and the staff returned to their work deflated. The stakes couldn’t have been larger for Tesla. This wasn’t nearly fixing a tough downside, one which threatened to empty restricted assets and derail improvement of the Roadster. If they cast an answer that appeared to work, solely to see Tesla autos catch fireplace in years to come back, the corporate can be doomed. And it could be a failure not only for Tesla; their desires of the electrical automobile could possibly be set again a era. They couldn’t solely trigger damage or loss of life, they could kill the electrical automobile within the course of.

If they wished to actually change into an automaker, they needed to face the problem that GM, Ford, and others had been coping with for 100 years: They had to make sure they have been placing protected automobiles on the roadway. An answer to thermal runaway may quantity to a real breakthrough, one that may set Tesla aside from the auto business for years to come back. Using lithium-ion batteries had appeared like a wise concept, one which quite a lot of thinkers had alighted on. But determining find out how to use them with out turning the automobile right into a ticking time bomb could possibly be their best innovation.

They stopped work on all facets of the Roadster venture and shaped a particular committee to discover a resolution. The staff arrange whiteboards, itemizing what they knew and what they wanted to be taught. They started operating day by day assessments. They’d configure a battery pack with the cells spaced otherwise, to see if there was an excellent distance for holding chain reactions. They tried completely different strategies of preserving the batteries cool, reminiscent of having air circulation over them or tubes of liquid brush previous them. They’d take the packs to a pad utilized by native firefighters for coaching and ignite one of many cells to higher perceive what was going down.

The hazard of the state of affairs was pushed house whereas en path to a kind of assessments. Lyons, their recruit from IDEO, started to odor smoke coming from the again of his Audi A4, the place he had loaded a pack of check batteries. It was an indication {that a} cell was heating up and approaching thermal runaway. He instantly stopped and yanked the batteries out of the automobile and threw them to the bottom earlier than his automobile may catch fireplace — an in depth name.

Eventually, Straubel started to slim in on an answer. If they couldn’t hold a cell from warming, possibly they may hold it from reaching the purpose the place it set off a series response. Through trial and error, the staff realized that if that they had every cell lined up just a few millimeters from its neighbor, snaked a tube of liquid between them, and dumped a brownie-batter-like combination of minerals into the ensuing battery pack, they may create a system that contained overheating. If a faulty cell inside started to overheat, its power would dissipate to its neighboring cells, with no particular person cell ever reaching combustibility.

Where simply months earlier that they had been struggling to arrange a workshop, now they have been on to one thing totally new. Straubel was thrilled. Now he simply wanted to determine find out how to persuade the battery suppliers to belief them. Straubel was listening to from Eberhard that the established producers weren’t thinking about their enterprise. As one government at a provider instructed Eberhard: You guys are a shallow pocket. We’re a deep pocket. If your automobile blows up, we’ll in all probability get sued.