okay so this is actually wild I just finished filming that video the one about the maryborough
this new battery will destroy the entire EV industry by Tech space I Googled that
headline to see if she had actually said that because it says maryborough quote this new
battery will destroy the entire EB industry I was like that doesn't sound like something maribara
would say but like whatever so I I Googled it and what came up just blew my mind this
is the original video right here okay great this nearly the same video if you listen to
the intros they're not quite the same words but they are like 90 the same words and then I was
like well that's weird maybe the guy runs two YouTube channels and then I looked at this one
and this exact same thing almost the exact same words but not quite then I looked at this one
almost the exact same words but not quite and if you look through all of them there's like
I don't know 10 videos where it's just generic um the voices are a little bit different they
all sound like maybe voice actors or maybe I'm thinking they're Ai and these are just AI
generated videos I don't know they could just be other people doing this but look at this
look at the headlines this new battery will destroy the entire EV industry this new battery
will destroy the entire EV industry this new battery will destroy the entire EV industry
maryborough this new battery will destroy the entire Eevee industry Mary Barrett this new bar
battery is going to destroy the EV industry this new battery will destroy the entire industry this
new battery will destroy they are all exactly the same that is so [ __ ] weird I don't have a good
explanation for this it seems like it's got to be Bots I can't imagine they're real people but this
is new I haven't seen stuff like this before so let me know what you think I genuinely don't know
um what to make of this but let me know what you think is this something nefarious going on
I'm curious I'm gonna read through the comments like all the comments on this one so let me know
all right just wanted to include that all right so I've been sent this video from quite a few
people and the funny thing to me is it hasn't just been Tesla enthusiasts it's actually been a lot of
Tesla haters or naysayers or whatever you want to call them who are saying look at this this is
proof that Tesla is going to get crushed because of this video titled maryborough this new battery
will destroy the entire EV industry and it's one of those like clickbait headlines that's
actually just kind of painful to see but if you go to the video creator who's making it called Tech
space and you just scroll through some of their videos you realize their entire video model is
Click bait the entire thing is clickbait like check this out Tesla's all new model y shocks
the entire car industry Tesla's all new model 3 2023 shocks the entire car industry BMW's
new hydrogen combustion engine shocks the entire uh entire EV industry and it happened the Cyber
truck 2022 is finally here and you can scroll down and you just get countless examples of Click bait
thumbnails and titles and it's really frustrating to see but hey hate the player not the game wait
hit the game not the player anyway so what we're going to do is we're going to watch this video and
I'm going to tell you why I think they're wrong as we go through this isn't going to be my usual
well-researched scripted video this is just going to be off the cuff what I think of this
because this is clickbait this is Straight Up Click bait and they're just view farming
um and they're not actually presenting any new information and that's what's frustrating to
me is it kind of feels like he's just wasting people's time so okay with that out of the way
let's get into it General Motors led by Mary Barra has the lofty ambition to unsee to the king of EVS
in the next few years while many people may think Barra is punching above her weight GM has a secret
weapon that shocks the entire car industry the new Altium battery okay uh I'm gonna stop you right
there real quick basically every Legacy automotive manufacturer right now has the mission or the goal
to unseat Tesla as the top EV producer GM is not unique in that way everyone's going for it
Volkswagen is actually making probably the biggest play but regardless that is a very normal ambition
everyone wants to sell more EVS GM is not unique in that but it seems like the video is saying the
ultium battery is their secret weapon and that's going to be their key to victory in beating Tesla
uh but we should remember the ultium battery is already out it's not like some new platform that
hasn't been released yet it's in the Hummer EV it's in I believe the Cadillac lyric and I think
it's even in the bolt euv but don't quote me on that actually let's just double check right now
thank you
okay so to scratch that it looks like the bolt UV doesn't have voltium battery but it's going
to be coming out later in 2023. anyway just to say it's not some new technology there
are products that already have this battery and they are not doing very well it's peak in
recent times it was in 2016 When It produced more than 10 million cars interestinglyness
and let's stop on that right there uh not to be rude but does this look like a company that
is experiencing massive success with their EVS because gem has been making EVS for actually a
really long time and yet in if we look at the last five well more than five consecutive years their
sales have been declining that's not exactly a company that I would bet on as that they were
going to be successful in the future obviously you know the past isn't a great indicator of the
future but it's a little bit of one so you know let's let them keep going GM inaugurated the
Modern Electric Car even though the two-seater EV Ended as a disaster and an embarrassing footnote
in the company's history people and knowledge from the ev1 program have influenced nearly every
startups into automakers development of electric vehicles the EV was a Pioneer in many ways one of
the things that doomed the ev1 was the atrocious range which was due to the lead acid battery ev1
came up with 26 of them and wave quite a lot which forced GM to use aluminum and Composites for the
body if you drove the car with intensity you may get about 50 miles on a single charge however okay
so that was the ev1 and if you want a really cool documentary about that you can watch who killed
the electric car it is seriously fantastic but that whole story is not about why the ev1 sucked
the whole story is actually people loved it it was fantastic and then through some new regulations GM
no longer had to produce the ev1 because they were producing it as just a compliance car and so they
killed it off there's actually more to it than that it's more complicated but the story isn't
that the product sucked the story is actually way more interesting because it's that people loved
the product it was good and yet for other reasons it was killed off so seriously go watch that
documentary if you haven't it's really telling on what companies like GM actually want to do versus
what they're saying they want to do GM planning to make lots of electric vehicles in needed to find
the winning formula for the EV battery which it has just done with the ultium battery GM
has committed to making okay we can't say that they found the winning formula for the batteries
when they haven't found Mass success with their ultimate battery platform that's for sure it's
barely being used and the cars it's being used for have not sold hardly anything I don't know how
many Hummers they've sold but it's tens or maybe hundreds but I would bet not even that much so we
can't exactly say this has been the huge success when it's just starting out maybe it's going to do
well maybe but it doesn't seem like it's anywhere near the Breakthrough that this guy is trying to
tell you it is the goal is to be producing more than one million electric vehicles per annum by
2025. okay so the goal is to produce more than one million electric vehicles per annum so per year
and that's I'm not saying that's that's nothing that's totally great but Tesla in 2021 all almost
produced a million and then in 2022 produced well over a million so they're aiming to be
where Tesla was three to four years later or three to four years before if you're aiming to be four
years behind your competition that's not going to Dethrone them I'm not saying they can't ramp up
from there but it's kind of funny to hear the goal being 1 million by 2025 when Tesla already hit
that goal why is the LTM battery so special the first selling point uh it's not that that's why
the cost per kilowatt hour GM was able to bring it down to about 100 per kilowatt hour at the battery
pack level Tesla has not been able to achieve this even with its new battery this price point
hmm okay so it's it's my understanding that right now Tesla's battery cost for production are around
120 to 140 dollars per kilowatt hour so while if if uh GM can get that below 100 or at 100
that's good that's totally good it's maybe not as impressive as they're making it sound if they're
getting a 20 to 40 percent price reduction in the battery that's really good um if they can
actually do that but a 20 reduction in battery cost doesn't mean you're all of a sudden going to
do really well there are so many more components and you have to look at the weight of the battery
there there are just so many other things so it's like yeah if they can produce a cheaper
battery that's great but what else is going on battery determines the price of an EV a 100 well
okay the battery doesn't exactly determine the price of an EB it is true that generally speaking
battery uh the battery is the most expensive component in an EV but you can have an EV that
costs 50 Grand and an EV that cost 150 Grand with the exact same battery because there's other stuff
other than the battery a lot of other features do you want to add what type of performance do
you want to have what sort of luxury do you want to have it's not as simple as the battery cost
this so the EV costs this and I'm sure they know that but yeah it is true that generally speaking
the battery is the most expensive component in an EB so if you can lower the battery cost that is a
significant cost reduction compared to more recent TVs the LTM battery pack costs about 40 lower than
those in the Chevrolet bolt EV okay and that's kind of my point he says that these batteries are
40 percent cheaper than what they are in the bolt which is Chevy's other production but the bolt has
never been known for its cheap battery costs and we know Tesla has significantly cheaper batteries
than what GM is putting in the Chevy bolt so what that tells us is that their new ultium battery
when compared to Tesla's battery cost is going to be dramatically less than 40 percent that's
not exactly the new game changing battery that's going to destroy the entire industry when it's
less than a 40 Improvement on just costs and we don't even know about weight or efficiency it
gets better going forward because GM promises that second generation ulti impacts will cost nearly 60
percent less than the batteries used today and yeah second gen packs will be better than first
gen packs that's nothing new if you don't have times if you don't have a time schedule on how
long it's going to take them to research develop and then Mass produce these batteries saying that
they're going to be better doesn't really help because the truth is everyone in the industry
is getting better all the time and so just because you have let's make up a number and say a 50 cost
reduction over the course of 10 years doesn't mean you're going to be better than the competition the
competition might do significantly better than that so that doesn't really help anything one
of the first EVS to be announced to use the ultium battery is the Cadillac with the 100 kilowatt hour
pack this car should deliver more than 300 miles and that's exactly my point with the 100 kilowatt
hour pack it's getting more than 300 miles that right there is what you would expect it's
not a breakthrough it's not better than what we currently have I believe Tesla's model X because
this is the Cadillac lyric is bigger so probably more comparable to Tesla's model X I believe that
has a 100 kilowatt hour pack and gets around that 300 mile range let me just double check
okay so it's got a 100 kilowatt hour pack and the range is 350 to so 350 to 330 miles so what this
guy is saying is the Breakthrough battery that will destroy the entire industry is basically
the same as what Tesla already has in their model X it's it's that sort of thing where it's like
well this is a big Improvement for GM over their current design but it's not a big improvement over
the current EV leader which is Tesla what about charging the LTM battery is it fast the answer is
a resounding yes most Altium battery packs will operate at 400 volts making them capable of DC
fast charging at up to okay so 400 volts that's about in line with Tesla 250 kilowatts however
there is a way to go yeah 250 kilowatts okay so that's this is just standard the only one that I'm
aware of that's better than that is I believe Lucid uses an 800 architecture which has some
benefits as far as faster charging capabilities but generally speaking even if your car can charge
at 250 kilowatts or higher than that maybe it can charge your 500. it doesn't really matter
because right now the charging infrastructure just isn't there so while you might be able to charge
incredibly quickly more often not the problem isn't if you can charge that fast it's if there
are charging stations that can charge that fast and generally speaking these days the answer is
no you're not going to be hitting anywhere near those charging speeds you're probably going to
be charging out more like 50 to maybe 150. but even faster on the Hummer EV you can virtually
wire the two 400 volt packs in series which will get you an 800 volt system during charging there
should be enough for the car to use 350 kilowatt charges that will add 100 miles in 10 minutes
okay so yeah that's really fast but the thing about the Hummer is because it's so inefficient it
uses a [ __ ] ton of electricity to do anything so while you can charge it really fast your
efficiency your kilowatt hour per mile or miles per kilowatt hour is going to be pretty bad so
while yeah it's going to charge quickly as in it can take a lot of charge it uses a lot of charge
to do anything so it's not as good as if you were charging like let's say a model 3 with that type
of current however GM points out that switching between 400 and 800 volt operation is a cheaper
solution than a dedicated 800 volt system like that used by the Porsche taiket yeah and that's
probably true and the 800 volt system while it does have its benefits it also has some drawbacks
so there's reason why a lot of companies don't use it the LTM battery is also highly flexible
it can house 6 8 10 12 or up to 24 modules allowing it to power the different kinds of
vehicles you will find on GM's lineup the design Engineers can easily arrange the battery pack to
optimize the height and length of the vehicle for aerodynamics Aesthetics Comfort Drive feel
and storage this and that's probably something we should talk about is modularity is generally
a good thing but the problem with modularity is that if you can change something from having like
let's say a 10 kilowatt hour tiny battery to a 200 kilowatt hour large battery in the same frame or
car footprint unless you're making custom frames for each of those which they're not because it's
a modular battery system then you're actually losing some efficiency due to needing that
flexibility so generally the trade-off is kind of you can perfectly build something one way and then
it has no flexibility to change or you can make something very flexible very modular but then it's
not as efficient as if you would have designed each design separately if that makes sense so
while I'm not saying this is a bad idea I think if you're going to make a ton of different car models
it's probably a good idea but you could make a more efficient vehicle if you custom tailored
each battery size to the vehicle GM has ensured the LTM battery lasts long you are free to charge
to 100 on DC charges and still expect to use the battery and that's great they've ensured
the ultim battery will last long that's really cool uh we'll see I mean we'll see these sorts
of things they take years to test out in in the real world and the real world always has different
results than what people are saying in Labs so we'll see I'm not saying it can't do it but
um we'll yeah we'll need to see that first especially because GM has had how do I want
to phrase this well let's just say they've had difficulties producing and maintaining
batteries in the past so that's the end of the video uh after watching it I just feel
like did I actually learn about a new battery that will destroy the entire EV industry no I
learned about slight improvements to GM's already kind of okay battery I mean it's nothing breaks
through there's nothing significant is GM's ultium battery going to be good it'll probably
be okay it's not going to be anything game changing it's not anything that Innovative
um so that's what frustrates me about these types of videos and this whole channel in general is
that everything is phrased as if it's changing the world and the world is never going to be the same
and everything is just click bait and you scroll through and then you watch the video and what did
we actually learn well they're making some pouch style modular batteries they're partnering with
LG chem and maybe some other companies and their batteries are going to have generally speaking
maybe 300 miles of range for a 100 kilowatt hour battery this is all the same as what we currently
have this is not something new or groundbreaking and to phrase it as the title and the thumbnails
do is just dishonest clickbait so that's how I feel about it uh let me know what you think about
videos like this in the comment section below do you like them or do you find them frustrating like
me because then people are going to say look now GM has this new battery that's going to destroy
the entire industry when that is not the case at all it's the it's just reading the headline
and then quoting what the headline says and not actually looking into it so anyway that's been
this video I hope you guys liked it let me know if you did and I'll see you in the next one peace