In Production Solid State Battery Tech? Potential for Aftermarket Lightning Pack upgrades?!

[chl]

In 1967, Kearns invented and patented an electronic windshield wiper system with intermittent operation (US 3,351,836). Previous wiper systems were controlled by vacuum tubes. He installed his device on his 1962 Ford Galaxy and met with Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corporation in 1963 with the goal of manufacturing his idea and being a supplier to the auto industry. Kearns tried to commercialize the wiper through the Tann Corporation. In 1969, Kearns's intermittent windshield wiper was installed on Ford cars without his knowledge. He ultimately filed suit against Ford for patent infringement in 1978 (representing himself as Kearns Associates), seeking $141 million in damages (a figure eventually raised to $325 million). Kearns's purpose in pursuing litigation was not a cash award. Rather, he wanted the rightful ownership. In all, he filed lawsuits against 26 car manufacturers and other companies concerning the same patent (US 3,351,836). In July 1990, a federal jury ruled that Ford had unintentionally infringed on Kearns's patent and awarded him $10.2 million. In June 1992, Kearns was awarded $11 million from Chrysler. Kearns held over 30 patents, with the majority relating to windshield wipers. Kearns died in 2005.

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[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

I chat with a battery researcher online concerning batteries in general (my home and business run on LFP packs) and their comment to me on this topic is "SSB have been successful in the lab for some time now, but bringing them to commercial production, QC/QA, repeatable consistant low cost production are the current challenges to be solved"
I have no idea if Donut has cracked the production problems or not, but I am skeptical given their size and budgets compared with hundreds of much larger firms that are working on this tech. Maybe they had a break through - I hope they did actually. But seeing is believing.

Ultimately, SSB will be mass produced, and it will change everything we thought we knew about EV transportation.

 

[ZeusDriver]

In 1967, Kearns invented and patented an electronic windshield wiper system with intermittent operation (US 3,351,836). Previous wiper systems were controlled by vacuum tubes. He installed his device on his 1962 Ford Galaxy and met with Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corporation in 1963 with the goal of manufacturing his idea and being a supplier to the auto industry. Kearns tried to commercialize the wiper through the Tann Corporation. In 1969, Kearns's intermittent windshield wiper was installed on Ford cars without his knowledge. He ultimately filed suit against Ford for patent infringement in 1978 (representing himself as Kearns Associates), seeking $141 million in damages (a figure eventually raised to $325 million). Kearns's purpose in pursuing litigation was not a cash award. Rather, he wanted the rightful ownership. In all, he filed lawsuits against 26 car manufacturers and other companies concerning the same patent (US 3,351,836). In July 1990, a federal jury ruled that Ford had unintentionally infringed on Kearns's patent and awarded him $10.2 million. In June 1992, Kearns was awarded $11 million from Chrysler. Kearns held over 30 patents, with the majority relating to windshield wipers. Kearns died in 2005.

I just read through the Kearns patent you cited, and oddly, found it fascinating... revealing me to be quite a nerd.

One of the most annoying "features" of the Tesla Model Y that I had for less than a year, was its "rain sensing" wipers. In the Tesla system, the same (single) forward looking camera, one of several is used for Tesla's crude attempt at driving autonomy, is used to sense rain intensity. This camera is not well suited to be focused on the other side of the windshield (say 1/4 inch from its lens) when it is intended to be focused many feet away from its lens. The area of the windshield that is sampled by a single camera is extremely small -- too small to be a reliable indication for rain intensity. (If, instead, there were a camera located a couple feet back (or forward) from the windshield surface, then the fairly simple recognition software could "see" rain and its intensity). So the rain sensing function of the Tesla wipers never worked on my car, and Tesla told me there was nothing to be done about that.

The consensus on the Tesla forum was that the wipers did not work right in any recent Tesla. But the fanboys would say "No problem. Just use them in manual mode! You just select the speed you want by using the touch screen !" (The touch screen is in the middle of the car, not in front of the driver... it is that thing that most autonomous driving systems warn you against looking at while driving.)

The obvious solution, of course, would be to use the rain sensors used on other cars (and which were used on earlier Teslas) but that would have added a few dollars of cost to each Tesla, and would be in conflict with Elon's notion that "People only have two eyes," so that all vehicle sensing can be done purely with cameras.

My 1972 Citroen SM responded to rain intensity (wiper faster in heavy rain. slower in light rain). I don't think it was an advertised feature, and I had assumed that it was an artifact of a system timed by a bimetallic strip heating up faster when the drag was high and more slowly when the drag was light. I never took the control apart, but it was probably designed exactly as described in Kerns patent. I wonder if Citroen was one of the infringers.

The system in the Citroen from 50 years ago was lightyears ahead of that on the Tesla -- it actually worked predictably and reliably.

Age test: who remembers when wipers were driven by vacuum motors, so when you went up hills they slowed down because you had to open the throttle more?

 

[chl]

I just read through the Kearns patent you cited, and oddly, found it fascinating... revealing me to be quite a nerd.

One of the most annoying "features" of the Tesla Model Y that I had for less than a year, was its "rain sensing" wipers. In the Tesla system, the same (single) forward looking camera, one of several is used for Tesla's crude attempt at driving autonomy, is used to sense rain intensity. This camera is not well suited to be focused on the other side of the windshield (say 1/4 inch from its lens) when it is intended to be focused many feet away from its lens. The area of the windshield that is sampled by a single camera is extremely small -- too small to be a reliable indication for rain intensity. (If, instead, there were a camera located a couple feet back (or forward) from the windshield surface, then the fairly simple recognition software could "see" rain and its intensity). So the rain sensing function of the Tesla wipers never worked on my car, and Tesla told me there was nothing to be done about that.

The consensus on the Tesla forum was that the wipers did not work right in any recent Tesla. But the fanboys would say "No problem. Just use them in manual mode! You just select the speed you want by using the touch screen !" (The touch screen is in the middle of the car, not in front of the driver... it is that thing that most autonomous driving systems warn you against looking at while driving.)

The obvious solution, of course, would be to use the rain sensors used on other cars (and which were used on earlier Teslas) but that would have added a few dollars of cost to each Tesla, and would be in conflict with Elon's notion that "People only have two eyes," so that all vehicle sensing can be done purely with cameras.

My 1972 Citroen SM responded to rain intensity (wiper faster in heavy rain. slower in light rain). I don't think it was an advertised feature, and I had assumed that it was an artifact of a system timed by a bimetallic strip heating up faster when the drag was high and more slowly when the drag was light. I never took the control apart, but it was probably designed exactly as described in Kerns patent. I wonder if Citroen was one of the infringers.

The system in the Citroen from 50 years ago was lightyears ahead of that on the Tesla -- it actually worked predictably and reliably.

Age test: who remembers when wipers were driven by vacuum motors, so when you went up hills they slowed down because you had to open the throttle more?

My worst experience with a wiper system was an old K-car my parents let me have when they got their first Toyota Camry back in the 80's.

The wiper switch was through the steering column to the turn signal lever - it stopped working. Replacement part - $100!!! WTF! Forgetabout it! I was in law school, working full time at the US PTO, with 3 young children, and well, $100 was a significant expense on my budget.

For a while I drove around with no wiper, sometimes reaching my arm out to manually move it as needed, lol. Not safe, especially at night, and made me look like a loser I'm sure.

I took an old switch out of my scrap parts and a few feet of wire and ran it through the window to the wiper motor and the battery and problem solved. Eventually I rerouted the wire so it didn't have to go through the window.

I hated that aluminum block K-car! It was burning water in the engine due to a crack somewhere, had to fill the radiator overflow frequently!

I also had a 1968 Peugeot 404 with one wiper that worked (the drivers side luckily), and a friend who worked as a state inspector at a gas station, he looked it up in the manual and it said "must have a working wiper" nothing about needing two, so it passed inspection, lol.

That was a real rust bucket however, and eventually I just had to scrap it - bought it for $80 at a school auction, sold it for scrap for $250, after driving it for a few years, and making some of my uptight neighbors unhappy at the sightliness of it, so no regrets!

 

[chriserx]

The obvious solution, of course, would be to use the rain sensors used on other cars (and which were used on earlier Teslas) but that would have added a few dollars of cost to each Tesla, and would be in conflict with Elon's notion that "People only have two eyes," so that all vehicle sensing can be done purely with cameras.

This kinda says it all really, sure most people only have 2 eyes, but we are also more or less sitting in the middle of the car, a couple feet from the windshield. In a way, the use of the camera for the wipers is kinda ingenious because if you hit a bug that splatters over the camera it could intelligently clean it, but with rain, your sample size is exceedingly small and you miss the big picture. Kinda explains a lot going on with him really, even if that wasn't my intention at the start.

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