[HN Gopher] Rimac unveils SineStack, battery energy storage system
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       Rimac unveils SineStack, battery energy storage system
        
       Author : taubek
       Score  : 94 points
       Date   : 2023-09-29 12:52 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.energy-storage.news)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.energy-storage.news)
        
       | hetspookjee wrote:
       | Im quite bothered by the "standard" one foot roll-out that car
       | manufacturers advertise these day with their 0-60 times. It's not
       | 0-60 with it when there's one foot roll out so it just feels
       | unrealistic. And besides the difference in time measured between
       | actual 0-60 and the one with the one foot roll-out is huge.
        
         | NikolaNovak wrote:
         | Thanks! I was not aware of it. It appears pervasive and
         | ubiquitous, but completely slipped my radar. I'm barely a
         | "hobbyist occasional track day racer" but it at least partially
         | explains why I or anybody I know cannot come close to
         | replicating the numbers I see (besides "they have much better
         | drivers", of course:). First foot is _HUGE_ , especially
         | amongst different drivetrains (FWD/RWS/AWD, manual/DCT/AT/CVT),
         | which handle the launch completely differently!
        
           | BoorishBears wrote:
           | Without a rollout most 0-60 times would be useless. You make
           | things like the surface the car is on matter way more than
           | they should.
           | 
           | What's more of a problem is the opposite: if you increase the
           | rollout so that the car's ECUs think it's being driven
           | normally, and _then_ mash the pedal to see how fast it goes,
           | you get dramatically slower numbers:
           | https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/buying-
           | maintenance/...
           | 
           | That reflects how fast a car will feel in daily driving as
           | opposed to a drag strip
        
             | NikolaNovak wrote:
             | Thx; hilariously, I own both the Honda Odyssey _and_ the
             | Subaru WRX example cars from the article :)
             | 
             | >>"It's that 5-to-60--the first number you should look at,
             | and when the light turns green, the only one that matters.
             | "
             | 
             | I think 0-60 from stop, 0-60 with foot rollout, and rolling
             | start 5-60 are all valid and useful metrics, when
             | explicitly indicated as such. While I've never participated
             | in a public-street red-light drag race, I don't think 5-60
             | is a valid metric for it, precisely for the reasons it
             | mentions - the 5-60 eliminates a lot of drivetrain and
             | surface components which would impact the launch; and more
             | directly compares just the pure power. My Subaru WRX has
             | less power, but has AWD and grippy tires, will leave my
             | 1-wheel-drive heavily-traction-controlled, all-season tires
             | Minivan in the dust at launch (but things may become more
             | equal from the rolling start or even on highway overtakes).
        
               | BoorishBears wrote:
               | > more directly compares just the pure power
               | 
               | That's closer to what most people racing in a straight
               | line want to measure as opposed to who can hook faster:
               | hence drag racing using a two stage starting position
               | 
               | No metric will every reflect racing from a dig on a
               | public street between the random surfaces, heat soak (it
               | takes one or two pulls for most cars to start pulling
               | timing stock), tires, etc... and I don't think any
               | publication is really interested in satisfying that
               | comparison.
        
               | NikolaNovak wrote:
               | I don't disagree. To your and authors point I have no
               | interest in wrecking my daily driver transmission. I was
               | just amused at the author spending 3 paragraphs
               | explaining confounding factors that affect from-0
               | performance, and then offered the canonical from-0
               | situation, a red light, as suitable for 5-60 metric :-).
               | 
               | Anyhoo. Good read nonetheless :-)
        
       | hengheng wrote:
       | So am I reading this right, they are getting to 92% efficiency by
       | knowing that their battery cells are insanely good low-pass
       | filters that they can throw anything at?
        
         | svnt wrote:
         | No, they got there by designing insanely efficient integrated
         | AC battery chargers and inverters at incredible power levels,
         | which it seems no one has done before.
         | 
         | Otherwise all one would have to do is get the batteries.
        
       | pornel wrote:
       | In the world of EVs, top auto makers are forced to become experts
       | in batteries and battery management systems.
       | 
       | The record-breaking Rimac Nevera can pull up to 1.4 _megawatt_
       | from its battery (https://www.rimac-newsroom.com/press-
       | releases/rimac-automobi...)
        
         | outworlder wrote:
         | Even my lowly leaf quickcharges at 50KW. The traction is
         | 80KW(plus losses). That is already a lot of power.
         | 
         | Compared to a house, that's a lot. Not even a modern house on a
         | 200A breaker supplying 220V can go that high - could get around
         | 44KW but not continuously. Many homes are still on 100A
         | service.
         | 
         | 1.4MW on a car is mind-blowing and in the realm of sci-fi not
         | too long ago.
         | 
         | This tech will eventually become mundane and available
         | everywhere (and hopefully some of that will leak into other
         | areas). But for now it's still spectacular.
        
       | calin2k wrote:
       | Rimac also did the battery system for "Koenigsegg Regera - the
       | world's most powerful production car" https://www.rimac-
       | automobili.com/media/press-releases/rimac-...
        
         | kwhitefoot wrote:
         | In what sense is a Koenigsegg a production car?
        
           | doikor wrote:
           | Usually this means that it is a street legal car that is/was
           | sold to the public.
           | 
           | In modern times this also means that it went through crash
           | testing so modern production cars have much larger production
           | runs to offset the costs of that or are very very expensive
           | (millions). For example Rimac said they are planning to make
           | 150 Neveras but they also had to make multiple rolling bodies
           | and a couple fully built cars (at minimum one for EU and one
           | for US if you want to enter both markets) for crash testing
           | on top of any development cars.
           | 
           | But strictly speaking there is no one definition but instead
           | each field/industry defines it in its own way. Motorsports
           | has its own (multiple actually depending on the
           | series/governing body), car manufacturers have their own,
           | record keeping organisations have their own (guinness book of
           | records), etc
        
           | pseudosavant wrote:
           | In the sense that it is "homologated" and has had to pass all
           | of the same tests as a car that will sell in the hundreds of
           | thousands, or even millions of units.
           | 
           | https://www.tuvsud.com/en/industries/mobility-and-
           | automotive...
        
           | fgsfds028374 wrote:
           | It can be purchased by a consumer and driven on public roads.
           | 
           | In what sense is it not one?
        
           | Toutouxc wrote:
           | In the sense that there were 85 of them built on the same
           | production line and sold to actual customers.
        
           | jsight wrote:
           | I feel like the minimum standard is too low, tbh. Building
           | dozens of them and selling them seems like enough.
           | 
           | There needs to be another standard that is something like...
           | built at least 10k of them. Because less than that is still
           | likely hand-built and it doesn't really mean much that it was
           | "production".
        
             | michaelbuckbee wrote:
             | "Mass Market Production"?
        
       | jWhick wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | djoletina wrote:
         | Can you elaborate?
        
       | jeffbee wrote:
       | It's a pretty big claim, 280kWh/m^2. That's 4x the density of
       | proposed iron-air batteries at utility scale (100h storage x
       | 3MW/acre = 74kWh/m^2). However, I don't know if areal energy
       | density is relevant to the market.
        
         | abecedarius wrote:
         | How does per-square-meter work out to be the relevant unit for
         | energy density? Where land is expensive wouldn't you just stack
         | things up?
        
           | newaccount74 wrote:
           | Those batteries would probably be installed in buildings, and
           | you probably wouldn't stack them, so the relevant dimension
           | is area required per kWh.
        
         | leetharris wrote:
         | It is relevant, some areas will need higher density and others
         | will need less density.
         | 
         | For bulk grid storage, batteries will likely be buried and not
         | very dense.
         | 
         | For local spot backup for buildings and urban areas you
         | absolutely want the highest power per cubic unit.
        
         | gorbypark wrote:
         | It seems to be in line with regular LiFePO4 batteries.
         | Wikipedia is claiming 325 Wh/L^2 for Lithium iron phosphate
         | batteries. This seems to be more about the inverter technology,
         | which I guess is what is different here compared to a bunch of
         | LiFePO4 cells in a box. There's a quote in the article about
         | the inverters allowing them to get the "best footprint in the
         | industry", so I'm guessing they managed to get the inverters
         | down to about 45 litres in volume (or less).
        
         | outside1234 wrote:
         | This battery is for a car, not grid storage (or at least this
         | is my read)
        
           | gorbypark wrote:
           | I don't think this is for a car. There's a line in the
           | article, "Details have been eagerly anticipated since the
           | company announced it was going into stationary energy storage
           | back in May".
        
           | tooltalk wrote:
           | >> the battery energy storage system (BESS) division of EV
           | supercar company Rima <<
           | 
           | ESS == stationary Battery Energy Storage System. So this
           | would be comparable to Tesal's Megapack business unit. I mean
           | 790kW in an EV? That's must be for a rocket.
        
           | jansan wrote:
           | 790kWh for a car? Now that should be sufficient range for
           | everyone. But seriously, this isn't for cars.
        
           | Retric wrote:
           | Looks like it's designed to charge EV's at 400kW. Perfect for
           | racetracks which may need insane charging rates but aren't
           | full time charging stations. 5 super cars at 400kW each would
           | normally take an insane grid connection, but you can trickle
           | charge these with solar and or vastly smaller grid
           | connections.
        
             | svnt wrote:
             | It isn't just race cars, this approximate power level is
             | widely available in consumer cars.
             | 
             | Hyundai Ioniq-5 and other vehicles can utilize the
             | increasingly common 350 kW connectors -- including the
             | Lucid Air, the Porsche Taycan, the Audi E-Tron GT, and the
             | GMC Hummer EV. [0]
             | 
             | This enables them to deploy the fastest DC charging in
             | places where the grid cannot support it. It's a big deal.
             | 
             | [0] https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1135771_hyundai-
             | ioniq-5...
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | You can use the battery on top of the existing grid
               | connection. So if you can charge the 790kWh battery pack
               | on a 50kW grid connection you can charge at 400kW + 50kW
               | = 450kW which seems overkill if you only need 350kW.
               | 
               | It might also be designed to support multiple EV's as
               | most cars can only stay at 350kW for a relatively short
               | period.
        
       | jansan wrote:
       | Not sure if enough people have Rimac on the radar. They are
       | pushing hard. For example the new Bugatti cars will be made by a
       | joint venture of Rimac and Bugatti (=Volkswagen), and they will
       | be hybrid or all electric. They have their own hyper car (the
       | Nevera which accelerates from 0 to 60mph in 1.74 seconds), do
       | development work for other car companies (like Porsche) and now
       | present this BESS. This is exciting stuff coming from Croatia.
        
         | locallost wrote:
         | For now Rimac has been most successful in finding investors.
         | His game is similar to Musk in that he's very capable of
         | swimming in the big money ocean, but the results are slim. This
         | year they received 180 million from the state to develop
         | autonomous taxis. It's not just state money, he's received
         | private investment too, but it's all a bit fishy. Big claims
         | and announcements, but a very slow rollout.
        
           | jackmott42 wrote:
           | They have been building and selling automotive electric
           | systems for posche/audi/ferrari and others for years, and
           | have released their own super car. What are you talking
           | about?
        
             | jandrese wrote:
             | They've built a handful of ultra-expensive boutique
             | automobiles. This is not nothing, but it's operating on a
             | different scale than a company like Porsche. They have
             | achieved world beating performance...on vehicles that are
             | basically lab specimens that will hardly ever be driven.
        
           | baxuz wrote:
           | Yeah, the guy said back in 2021 that they'll make lvl 5 (LOL)
           | autonomous robo taxis by the end of 2023.
           | 
           | And the government bought the techbro investor-speak and gave
           | an already shady company 180m EUR of taxpayers money.
           | 
           | https://www-telegram-hr.translate.goog/vijesti/telegram-
           | dozn...
        
         | mschuster91 wrote:
         | They're the Croatian equivalent of German "hidden champions" -
         | insanely good technology, possibly world-leading positions in
         | their niche, but very unknown outside of said niche.
         | 
         | Rimac cars aren't something your average neighbor will ever
         | drive, probably not even your average non-F500 CEO. But,
         | similar to F1 racing cars and early-days Tesla, they push right
         | at the edges of technology, which will eventually trickle down
         | to ordinary cars.
        
           | nixass wrote:
           | In Croatia they are also known of being shady company with
           | shady government deals, shady beginnings (money laundering)
           | and burning money on projects that aren't feasible at all.
           | But they look good on paper and government lovea to use them
           | as a PR and "successful Croatian project"
        
             | lnsru wrote:
             | Thanks. The amazing campus was a bit too beautiful to be
             | true for a growing car company.
        
             | bdamm wrote:
             | This is fascinating to me.
             | 
             | What fraction of companies in Croatia are "money
             | laundering"? Because if the fact is that most companies
             | start out this way, and we end up with Rimac due to a
             | magical grouping of people, then their success is hardly
             | ignoble at all; it should be celebrated, supported, and
             | leveraged into a moderate size organization. In that sense,
             | they were successful despite their beginnings, which would
             | normally be structured to not foster innovation. So they
             | should be celebrated by Croatia and by Croatians since it
             | is an example of what companies can be, and not so much an
             | example of how companies can start since we already know
             | the probability of success with that method is very low.
        
         | agloe_dreams wrote:
         | I'm not sure framing it as a joint venture is the right way to
         | frame it, though they use the term to describe it that way. VAG
         | put Mate in charge of a new division - Bugatti Rimac
         | Automobiles. They are the parent company of Bugatti and Rimac.
         | In it, Rimac holds 55%, VAG owns 45%. However, VAG also owns
         | 22% of Rimac below, so VAG has technical controlling interest
         | here. By any regards though, they basically did an Apple/NEXT
         | type of takeover, where VAG bought much of Rimac but Mate took
         | over Bugatti. Obviously, I think this all makes your point
         | stronger.
        
           | RealityVoid wrote:
           | So what happens if you have 22% of a company that owns 55% of
           | a joint venture? I don't _think _ you actually get to take a
           | decision on 22% of the 55%, do you? The 22% company's board
           | would probably get together, decide on a single vote for the
           | 55% percentage and your ownership would not be useful in
           | decision making?
        
           | kungito wrote:
           | They didn't buy Rimac, they bought a stake. It used to be
           | 24%, not sure if it's bigger now
           | https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36920070/bugatti-rimac-
           | po...
        
             | agloe_dreams wrote:
             | I updated the comment, It's really weird. They bought a
             | part but also effectively gave Rimac the Bugatti company.
             | One can argue that they basically leveraged Bugatti to
             | acquire some control of Rimac and board seats without
             | spending actual money.
             | 
             | They have a glorious flowchart on their site. https://web-
             | cdn.rimac-automobili.com/wp-content/uploads/2021...
        
               | rasz wrote:
               | That chart reminds me of Korean chaebols ownership
               | structure right before the big crash of 1997
               | 
               | Asianometry How the Rich Ate South Korea
               | https://youtu.be/hWCcvOE84Ao?t=489
        
               | NikolaNovak wrote:
               | That IS a glorious chart, thank you; am I the only one
               | who would REALLY want some arrows there? :)
        
             | KingOfCoders wrote:
             | Porsche has a 45% stake in Bugatti Rimac and a 22% stake in
             | Rimac Group, which has a 55% stake in Bugatti Rimac. So
             | it's complicated.
        
               | TacticalCoder wrote:
               | Not that complicated. Porsche was once described as "the
               | hedge fund that happens to also build cars".
               | 
               | Porsche did this stake here and there thing precisely to
               | gain > 50% of Rimac voting rights.
               | 
               | It's simple really: Porsche controls Rimac.
               | 
               | Then there's the whole "VW took control of Porsche after
               | the short squeeze made by Porsche to try to acquire VW
               | failed" (it failed due to the sudden crash during the
               | 2008 banking crisis IIRC). And now Porsche is apparently
               | spinning out of VW and shall be independent again.
        
               | cinntaile wrote:
               | They only own 22% in Rimac, that's not a controlling
               | stake. Therefore they don't have > 50% of Rimac (Rimac
               | Bugatti I assume) voting rights.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | WanderPanda wrote:
               | I like my conglomerates like my datastructures, directed
               | and acyclic :p
        
           | jansan wrote:
           | I missed where VAG bought Rimac. Are you sure this is true?
           | Here is an org chart for Rimac Bugatti, and AFAIK the
           | ownership structure has not changed since:
           | 
           | https://www.rimac-automobili.com/media/press-
           | releases/rimac-...
        
             | TacticalCoder wrote:
             | It's not Volkswagen AG who took control of Bugatti and
             | Rimac, it's Porsche.
             | 
             | And Porsche is spinning out of VW and becoming independent
             | again:
             | 
             | https://capital.com/porsche-volkswagen-vw-demerger-spin-off
             | 
             | https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36933399/did-
             | porsc...
             | 
             | (answer is "yes" btw)
        
               | agloe_dreams wrote:
               | Ah but Porsche is not Porsche but instead Porsche AG and
               | Porsche SE.
               | 
               | It is pure insanity in need of many flow charts.
        
               | jacooper wrote:
               | Huh, why would VAG just give up on Porsche like that?
               | Especially that Porsche holdings owns a big part of VAG
               | itself.
        
               | hef19898 wrote:
               | Because the people controlling VW are the same that arw
               | behind Porsche, namely the families Porsche and Piech.
        
         | wand3r wrote:
         | > Not sure if enough people have Rimac on the radar.
         | 
         | I've been aware of them for a while but they are largely
         | irrelevant for most people. The technology is interesting and
         | styling is cool but they were something like 1.9m euro.
        
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