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Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

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The lithium ion batteries installed on the Boeing 787 are inherently unsafe, says Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and owner of electric car maker Tesla. "Unfortunately, the pack architecture supplied to Boeing is inherently unsafe," writes Musk in an email to Flightglobal. "Large cells without enough space between them to isolate against the cell-to-cell thermal domino effect means it is simply a matter of time before there are more incidents of this nature," he adds. (www.flightglobal.com) More...

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num1tailhooker
Lucio DiLoreto 3
I have a solution. It is assumed that the batteries fail when being charged or as a result of a charging anomaly. The batteries are used to start the APU, one time, and as a backup in the event of other failures. In any event the batteries most likely can fly one flight without a total discharge. I recommend that they disconnect the charging circuit from the batteries, let the batteries do their job with the full charge they have at the beginning of each flight. Then after each flight replace the batteries with fully charged batteries from a charging station. They laughed at Wilber and Orville too.
Billoz
Bill Osborne 1
You wwould think Boeing would take any assistane offered to get their 787 fleet airborne again, or am I too trusting of Boeing?
Moviela
Ric Wernicke 1
I think Musk will do anything to get his mug in the media. I think he might have some good points, backed up with what he learned spending $100 million on an electric car battery. I feel also that he is taking a dig at Boeing to gain an advantage for his SpaceX enterprise that builds spacecraft on the cheap that competes with Boeing.

Were Musk to continue making unmanned "pick-up truck" cargo vessels I would not care, but he intends to use the same basic vehicle for manned flight. I would opine that only government has the ability to finance manned space flight.
akayemm
Er.A.K. Mittal 1
Well said Mr. Elon Musk . Many a time basics help , as I keep saying . Battery design can be more complex than designing a particle that can move faster than speed of light . Or it can be as simple as 'mechano' or building blocks , toys for children less than 5 y.o. All depend upon the approach of persons looking into solutions to a problem. Whether it is commercial or professional or egoistic ! Solution will emerge or elude accordingly . Most of the time even defining the problem can be a problem ! And wise people know , if you can define the problem or locate the fault EXACTLY , more than half the job is done . Solution will be just a matter of routine steps . One has to be capable of asking the right questions to get the right answers . So good luck to National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing and all airlines concerned with this and similar problems .

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