Battery Technology Forecast

So I’ve been reading more and more research on batteries lately and I’ve come up with what I think are some reasonable estimates on the different types of technologies and when we’ll see them and what they mean.

(sorry for the poor formatting of the table, this WP theme is really narrow)

Technology Energy Density (Wh/kg) Power Density (W/kg) First Production First in Cars Implications
First-Gen Tech 100-125 900 2008 2010 These are the batteries the Volt & Leaf launched with. Some more recent EVs have slightly better tech (Teslas, new Fords, RAV4 EV, etc)
Silicon Anodes 200-300 1500 2013 2014 The first significant boost to Li-Ion batteries since the electrification of the vehicle started in 2010. EV range will increase to about 125-150 miles, from 75 today.
Layered Manganese Cathode 400-500 1200 2015 2017 The second major boost, this will push EVs to 200 miles of range. Prices come down enough that two car households will now start buying an EV to replace one of their gasoline cars.
Lithium-Sulfur 600-750 2000 2018 2020 EV range increases to almost 300 miles, enough to alleviate range anxiety for most drivers. Fast-charge systems between cities are robust enough to support long distance driving east of the Mississippi and along the west coast.
Lithium Air 1000 500 2020 2022 The low power density relegates this technology to grid backup at first, but after a while is improved to work in pure EVs (wont work in plug-in models). 400-500 mile range EVs become common with this technology.

Don’t hold me to this, no one can really predict the future. This is all based on how I see things going. The next 18 months or so will tell – can companies start to deliver on their promises of silicon anode batteries that have good enough cycle life for use in an electric car. If they can then we start to see larger gains in battery tech – instead of an 8-10% gain in energy density per year, we see closer to 20% per year.

Things I learned as a web developer from the Comic-con ticketing fiasco

Today was the big day – at 9AM pacific, tickets went on sale for San Diego Comic-con 2013.  Unfortunately, their web developers had a few bugs in the software, one of which bit me bad enough it killed my ability to secure tickets.

As a web developer it hit me about 15 minutes in as to why I wasn’t moving up in line (and the “customer service” line was busy the entire time). Once I opened the Developer Console in Google Chrome and saw the JavaScript errors I knew it was over.

  1. Store all static assets on a CDN. This is the bug that bit me – there were some JavaScript resources that it was trying to pull from the server that timed out with 503 errors (service unavailable, usually due to demand). If these files were stored on a CDN all over North America & the world, it wouldn’t have been an issue. Even if they were hosted within the same “cloud” instance, if one critical piece of the cloud goes down, it would take all those requests with it. Why is it a big deal if the JavaScript doesn’t load? Because the JavaScript had the code that would refresh your position in line, and when it was your turn, redirect you to the portal to buy the badges. So what ended up happening to me was that I was #22,397 in line, but I never advanced in line because the JS that was responsible for moving me up in line never loaded and never executed.
  2. If the next page is going to take a while to load, tell people. The other big issue I saw the white page of mystery. Basically, after you clicked the big green “GO” button at 9AM, if you made it into the EPIC (the name of their ticketing system) waiting room, the screen would be blank for a while, for me it was about 90-120 seconds. But then the screen would come up and tell you what place you were in line, what not to do (don’t refresh the page, etc). But people didn’t know what to do with this infinitely loading page. What I would have done was serve a static HTML page, and then used AJAX to retrieve that person’s place in line (via the session key), fill in all the details and then let them wait it out until they’re at the front of the line.
  3. Sometimes, just putting it in on a cloud-based system isn’t enough. Sometimes you might need more than one cloud-based backend. Partition the servers (e.g. 20,000 tickets on each) and go from there. Likewise, multiple card payment services might need to be used in order to process card swipes quickly (you might need 3 or 4 different providers, and you just switch off between them based on a hash of an order ID #). 

So thats what I learned as a web developer to cope with high demand events.

Now as a nerd, I’m still pretty pissed off I wasn’t able to get a ticket, even though I was lucky enough to make it into the waiting room. Some time around May they’ll release some more badges, but likely the scramble for them will be more desperate and furious than this one.

My New Home Server

Screen Shot 2013-06-19 at 7.41.27 PMBack at CES in 2007, I was ecstatic to hear about Microsoft and HP designing a Home Server platform for people who wanted to have a centralized file storage system in their house. I built my first WHS box with two 750GB HDDs, it was good, but I outgrew that storage as I realized that I could rip and encode my DVDs and then store them on the iPhone, then play them on my PS3. I eventually upgraded to a HP MediaSmart Server. It was good, I expanded it to 3.5TB of storage space (about 2TB usable due to data duplication). It was supposed to support Time Machine backup support, but that never worked right. But it served well (no pun intended) up until 2012 when I had to send it in to replace the power supply at a cost of $125. I realized the time was running out on that hardware and I would need to replace it.

I thought about going the NAS route (Synology or something similar) but I wanted the functionality of a full computer in addition to file storage. What I ended up building is a Mac mini-based file server. The core is a 2012 Mac mini base model, upgraded by me to include a 64GB SSD (in addition to the 500GB drive it came with) as well as 16GB of RAM. The extra storage is provided by a CineRAID USB 3.0 external storage array. It has four bays, each one is filled with a 3TB WD Red HDDs designed for home NAS usage. I’m using Zevo ZFS to put the drives together in a RAID-Z2 array. I still haven’t figured out if ashift=9 or =12 is the right configuration. I need to benchmark the array when I find more free time, although one blog post found that when using Mac ZFS, ashift=12 worked better on 4K advanced format drives. I also used Liberate to share folders on the ZFS-formatted file system over AFS (instead of SMB).

The OS itself has been upgraded to OS X Server. This allows it to serve as a VPN endpoint as well as a Time Machine backup target for all the other Macs in the house. The VPN stuff works well, except for when the unsecured WiFi I’m trying to use blocks VPN, defeating the purpose of using their unsecured WiFi in the first place (unsecured WiFi transmits everything in the clear, including cookies necessary to provide security on websites like Facebook and Twitter, unsecured WiFi is always a bad idea).

I’ve installed a few pieces of software on the devices – Plex Server for sharing music and movies over DLNA to supported devices, and I keep iTunes running in the background for sharing to the two AppleTVs in the house, as well as all the iDevices (iPhone, iPad). I also installed Handbrake to let the server handle all the encoding responsibilities, and Subler to attach metadata to ripped movies. The only caveat with iTunes is that you have to manually add new music and movies (which means I have to VNC into the server and add them manually – Plex will auto-scan for new titles).

Viewing the movies is done from my Samsung TV in the office over DLNA (via Plex) or on my main TV or bedroom TV on an AppleTV. I had originally tried to use a PS3 for viewing, however there is some new content copy protection called Cinavia. It is an audio-based copy protection system that survives downcoding, transcoding, conversion to mono, whatever you can throw at it. It takes about 20 minutes to work, and will cut off the audio and display an error message. The browsing experience on the AppleTV looks really good – especially when the metadata and the artwork is added to the movie file.

I’m pretty happy with the result. It was expensive though – the Mac mini is $600, the external array was $160, and the four HDDs are $640. The 16GB of RAM was $80, the iFixit 2nd Drive kit was $50, and a 64GB SSD was $70, for a total of $1600. The upside is that hopefully, I will be able to use this hardware for at least 3-5 years, maybe adding storage space along the way (another USB 3.0 external enclosure and more HDDs). This will likely be my last computer-related purchase for a while, I’ve spent enough money on technology for now.

UNLV Now’s Wishful Thinking

UNLV Now – the master plan that is designed to bring an indoor covered football stadium to the UNLV campus – is slowly making progress towards reality. The problem is that their envisioned reality doesn’t seem to match up with the real world (Executive Summary, full report – both in PDF).

The most problematic thing is they’re selling the stadium under the guise of having 15 major events per year to bring in additional tax revenue. There list is as follows, with critical commentary about each idea.

1. PAC-12 Football Conference Championship Game (December)

They start the list off well – this is something that could easily happen. Along with one neutral-site PAC-12 game each year (earlier in the season). (+1)

2. NFL Exhibition game (August)

The report authors are on crack. The NFL hates Las Vegas and legalized sports betting with a passion, and there is no way the league would allow a game to be held one mile from The Strip.

3. New College Football Bowl Game (December)

While I think we could get a better bowl game, its not going to be a big blockbuster game and definitely wont be a BCS game (the NCAA doesn’t like Vegas/betting much either). (+1)

4. Neutral Site College Football Game (Fall)

As mentioned above in #1, this is likely to happen. (+1)

5. Second Neutral Site College Football Game (Fall)

I’m not so sure about a second game – we need to get one game first, establish it, and make sure that the teams coming to Vegas are happy with the results before we start thinking we can get a second. We’ve been talking about a second NASCAR race here for a long time, but that hasn’t happened yet (though we have gotten the end of the year celebration). That said it could happen – Las Vegas has been very successful in recruiting west coast basketball conferences to host their games here – neutral court as well as being an attractive tourist destination with a variety of hotels and prices available to different kinds of fans. (+0.5)

6. International Soccer Festival (Summer)

This would be good, we’ve had a few soccer games here before, and I’m sure we can attract a lot of foreign visitors (thanks McCarran for the new T3, its very nice!). (+1)

7. Electronic Music Festival (2 to 3 days, Summer)

While it would definitely be easier for the EDM kids to go by shuttle bus to the new stadium instead of the speedway, there are several reasons I don’t think this will work.

1) Most large music festivals are held outdoors and in large flat areas – not in an indoor stadium. EDC, Coachella, Bonaroo, Glastonbury – all outdoor festivals. This project doesn’t have large grassy areas for festivals to be held.

2) Capacity – I don’t think you’ll be able to accommodate 100,000 people per night in a 55,000 seat arena, even if you open up most of the field area. Plus, EDC has multiple stages, not possible in a football stadium – you’d have to setup other stages outside the stadium in the adjacent parking lots and even then I don’t think they’re big enough for EDC-level of attendees.

The LVMS is the only places in town, other than the Convention Center, that could host the EDC. If ticket prices and how quick they sell out are any indication, EDC would like to grow, not shrink, their event here in Vegas.

8. Country Music Festival (either with ACM weekend or another time) 2-3 days

Yup, this would be a fan favorite! (+1)

9. UFC International Fight Week (Summer)

Another good event – UFC could fill most of the 55,000 seats assuming the stadium has a Cowboys Stadium-like video system. (+1)

10. Tour Concert (Summer)
11. Tour Concert (second, Summer)

Two major tour stops are a reasonable assumption, the question is what bands or performers can you think that would sell more than 25K tickets to a stadium show in Vegas? U2. Whatever the latest Disney-manufactured sensation is. Thats about it. Plus, the casinos hold the monopoly on most concerts nowadays (either MGM Grand or Mandalay Bay for very large events). (+2)

12. Winter Kick Soccer Festival (February)

Two soccer festivals in one year? Lets not push our luck.

13. Rock Music Festival (Summer)

This faces the same problems as the EDC above – the fact that it is indoors and doesn’t have a lot of room around the stadium for multiple stages and multiple bands going at once. You could have one stage at the football stadium and one at the T&M, but that goes back to them both being indoor setups, not traditional music festival setups.

14. X Games (Summer)

Possible, but I don’t see Vegas getting it every year – maybe every other year or third year in rotation with LA and San Diego. (+0.5)

15. NFL Pro Bowl (January)

See #2 above – the NFL hates our guts. Not happening.

16. MWC Football Championship Game (December)

The football side of the MWC is a joke. Sorry, but considering how all the quality teams are leaving to go to other conferences, it just shows we’re the ugly kid at the prom. This will happen in future years because the MWC has 10 football teams, but that doesn’t mean its going to attract a lot of ticket sales and major national attention (e.g. TV ratings). (+0.5)

17. NFR Closing Event (December)

Yup! I would just hold the entire NFR at the stadium, one of the halves of the bowl and then sell 25K tickets, much like they do with playing basketball games in football stadiums. It might not be the best fit but its more seats than the T&M allows for now. (+2.5)

Also, they listed a possibility of other events coming to Vegas based on talks with the LVCVA.

18. Wrestlemania

Do people still watch wrestling? Do they know its fake? Its like a soap opera for angsty kids and teenagers who cant control their anger so they have to live out violence vicariously. I guess we could get one occasionally, but wrestling doesn’t seem that big here in Vegas – why not just go all-in and watch UFC? (+0.1)

19. Republican or Democratic National Convention

I highly doubt either party wants to hold their convention in the “city of sin”, where “what happens here, stays here”. Too much fodder for their opponent.

20. NCAA Final Four Basketball Championships

No. Again, the NCAA hates us. Not happening at all. Never.

21. Comic-Con

I am a nerd and would love Comicon to be in Vegas, however 1) I don’t see how a stadium helps when we already have the logistical critical mass necessary in terms of hotel rooms and convention space and 2) its gone from nerdy things to pop-culture things in the last few years and I don’t see how Vegas fits into that (its gone Hollywood, and its a 2 hour drive to SD, and a 4-5 hour drive to Vegas). That said, they could finally hold a Firefly/Serenity panel at the stadium and not reach maximum occupancy! 😉

22. Boxing

Yes, but no one really cares about boxing unless there is a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiáo. And who knows when that’ll actually happen. (+0.1)

23. MLS All-Star Game

Yes, but again I don’t see Vegas getting one of these every year – just a once every 5-10 years thing. (+0.1)

24. Corporate Events

Sure, but I don’t think we’ll see a lot of them filling up the joint, especially in light of the ridiculous amount of convention space already present in Las Vegas. (+0.1)

If you count up the list of all the annual events, and partial (every other year or every third year) events, you get a total of 12.5 events annually, below the 15 they are targeting for their tax revenue generation promises. So take almost 20% off their tax revenue estimates before you take those numbers and plug them in elsewhere.

Las Vegas needs a nice, “major league” stadium. But don’t use inflated numbers to justify it, it’ll only come back and bite you in the ass. Besides, after looking at the UNLV master plan, there is no way they would have adequate parking for the stadium’s events – the master plan shows taking away more than half of the T&M parking and then adding the stadium to that, with only a few thousand additional parking spots added back into the mix. So the new stadium would have less parking that the current T&M has now. Good luck with that!

Fourth-gen iPad now? Why? And what Apple’s new lineup looks like…

At the Ars Technica Mac Forum, I made a post explaining why I think that Apple decided to release a 4th generation iPad now, in the fall, instead of the regular spring-time release.

Remember how there were all those rumors in 2011 about a second update to the iPad in the fall? But it never materialized? I’m willing to bet that it almost happened – except that the retina display yield issues caused it not to happen, so they went with the traditional spring launch. So instead of syncing up the iPhone/iPad release dates in 2011, they did it in 2012. This year since there were no yield issues with any parts (the A6X was ready to go), they changed the annual release date from spring to fall.

There were a TON of rumors about a fall 2011 iPad release [1] [2] [3]. But it didn’t happen. But now the iDevice launches are synced, mostly.

So here is what Apple’s new line-up looks like…

Spring/Summer: Mac (depending on when Intel makes the new chips available)
Summer (June/July): OSX release, iOS beta
Fall (September/October): iDevices – iPhone first, then iPod, iPad, including iOS

So 2013 looks like…

March – OSX 10.9 Beta
June – WWDC, new Mac Laptops, desktops maybe
July – OSX 10.9 Release, new Mac Pros (?)
September – iPhone 5S, iPods, iPads

How to do a “Cross-line Upgrade” on AT&T

So the new iPhone was announced yesterday. But AT&T recently changed its rules so that the primary line on a family plan can only upgrade every 18 months, compared to 12 previously.

So what to do? Use another line on the family plan to upgrade.

To begin, you’ll need a family plan with two or more lines. One of those lines must be eligible for a full upgrade (it’s been 18 months since their last subsidized upgrade).

  1. Order the new iPhone under the upgrade eligible phone line for the fully discounted price
  2. When the phone arrives, activate it on the line it was ordered on. This is a security feature that is required to prevent phones from being stolen during transport or delivery. Note that this will deactivate the users current phone, so you’ll want them around when you do this.
  3. Once activated then call AT&T and ask for a “cross line upgrade”. They will change the phone’s ownership to the line you request and the other person may be required to reactivate their current phone.
    With an iPhone, because it is SIM-locked to the phone number it is ordered, you have to visit an AT&T store and have them replace your SIM card.

And you’re done!

My Predictions for the next Volt Generation

Word has spread that the GM’s new compact car platform is being worked on, named “D2XX” (for now at least). The current “Delta” platform underlying the Volt and the Cruze compact cards will make its final appearances in the 2014 model year vehicles, making way for this new platform in the 2015MY vehicles.

GM’s goal is to design the platform so that in addition to traditional compact cars, it can also accommodate the small-SUV category – currently filled by cars like the Equinox in the US.

So this leads us to believe that The Next Generation Volts are likely to arrive at the end of 2014 for the 2015 model year vehicle. What will it be like? While I will put down exact numbers, its pretty difficult to figure exactly what they’ll do two years from now, so figure a plus/minus 5% after each number I write.

First is the battery size and rage. I’d expect the new Volt to have a 17kWh, 11kWh usable Li-Ion battery. The battery will provide for a 40 mile EPA rated range, and 40-45 mile real-world range, with much better cold/warm wether performance than the first generation battery. Improvements in the battery’s ability to perform under varied thermal conditions, as well as upgrades to the vehicle’s electric heating and cooling system will reduce the range variation significantly from the first generation. The battery pack itself will be more space and weight efficient compared to the original 2010 Volt. The current pack is about 200kg, or 435 pounds for 16kWh. The new battery pack will weigh approximately 140kg for 17kWh, increasing the pack-level Wh/kg from 80 to 120. The cells themselves are likely to be around 180-200Wh/kg but the pack and cooling system and weight overhead to the cells. This will also reduce the volume of the battery from 100L (160 Wh/L) in the current model to 70L (240 Wh/L) in the second generation. Again the batteries themselves will be more volume efficient, but the pack wiring and cooling adds overhead.

This reduced weight and volume allow the 5th seat to return to the Volt. The battery will likely be stored under the bench of the rear seat, as well as into the trunk like the current model. I’d expect the Volt battery to be made in rectangular segments (similar to the top of the current battery’s “T”) with various segment lengths. This will allow the battery platform to be more modular.

The range extender will likely get a little bigger too, though not that much bigger. Probably 1.6L up from 1.4L now, along with direct injection to make burning fuel more efficient. I’d expect an gas MPG around 43-45, and a slightly smaller gas tank (8.5 gallons) for a gas-only range of 380 miles, up from 360 today.

I don’t expect the Volt to get any larger, at least not until the third generation where battery efficiency gains another 50% or more (sometime around 2020). However we will see follow-on models like an small SUV style vehicle with another modular row of batteries underfloor to give it 35-40 mile range despite increased size, weight, and aerodynamic drag. Likewise, this vehicle will get a slightly bigger gas tank as well.

The biggest factor in all this of course, is price. By 2015 I’d expect that the current tax credit will expire, and the volume of cars will have picked up enough (~50K/yr) where they can bring the price down in a meaningful way – probably around $30,000 (in 2012 USD). The small SUV style vehicle will probably be $6,000 more.

What to expect with the new iPhone (“iPhone 5”)

Things we’re sure of

  • 4″ Screen (in-cell)
  • New Design

Things I’m sure of

  • LTE on Qualcomm’s MDM9615+WTR1605L chipset
  • 32nm application processor (A6), fast dual core (1.5GHz)
  • International LTE (on EU-800 and EU/Asia-1800), but no worldwide LTE roaming (international roaming will be restricted due to 3G due to the different models needed to accommodate the various LTE worldwide bands)
  • IGZO screen for better battery life It appears that Sharp wont be delivering any IGZO screens until 2013. The good news is they had live demos showing IGZO screens using 60% of the power of a regular screen (1.86W vs 1.1W for a 7″ display). It appears the first IGZO screen will probably end up in the iPad 4 in Spring 2013 (and the battery will go back to 25-30Wh).
  • T-Mobile support (if not initially, eventually – definitely by end of Q2 2013)
  • China Mobile support (655M customers, again if not initially, eventually, expect before Chinese New Year)
  • 5GHz WIfi support (802.11n)

Expected Battery Specs

  • 12 Hours talk time (3G, since there is no VoLTE networks running yet)
  • 7 hours LTE data
  • 9 hours HSPA/CDMA data
  • 10 hours Wifi data
  • 10 hours video (H.264)

Most of the factors that go into this are that the processors are fabricated on a smaller lithography (28 and 32nm) and the IGZO screen cuts its power consumption by 50%. This is why the battery is only slightly larger instead of a lot larger than the previous generation.

Radio Configurations

US GSM: Lower 700 (Band 12), 850 MHz, 900MHz (for international 3G), 2100 (for international 3G), PCS (1900), AWS (1700/2100), WCS (2.3GHz)

US CDMA: Upper 700 (Band 13), 850 MHz, 900MHz (for international 3G), 2100 (for international 3G), PCS (1900), AWS (1700/2100), BRS/EBS (2.6GHz)

EU/Asia (Japan/Korea): 800MHz (digital dividend), 850 MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz, PCS (1900), 2.6GHz

Notes:
  • The phone as-is wont support Sprint’s eventual LTE iDEN network. This would require a third US model since it would replace Upper 700 (Band 13) with the iDEN band.
  • The radio configurations don’t allow international LTE roaming, just 3G.
  • China Mobile may end up using the EU/Asia model, but probably reconfigured slightly such that it can use TD-SCDMA (may or may not require new hardware, probably not but we’ll see).