> The battery in a Tesla Model S, OTOH, is continuously computing whether to charge or discharge
Is it? I would imagine the software does that. The battery really is a large array of commodity batteries made by panosonic. Tesla is doing the gigafactory for vertical integration and to bolster it's own supply. Obviously, they have done a lot of innovation around the pack in terms of heat distribution and cell construction, as well as the management system. The innovation is really about the macro-cell construction and the software to manage the array. On a micro-level it is just a bunch of commodity batteries wites into small cells, that make up a large cell array.
It is. JB Straubel (Tesla's CTO) has done all of the hard work with regards to their energy management system.
Sure, babying the pack with a liquid medium for thermal transfer helps (compared to the inferior air cooling on the Nissan Leaf battery pack), but the foundation for both the performance and longevity of the Roadster and the Model S battery packs is Straubel's remarkable work.
Obviously the lithium-ion cells themselves aren't doing the computation; software is. But the software should be considered part of the "battery" as a system. Without the software the lithium-ion cells are useless for this application, and indeed for any application more dynamic than a flashlight. So the software development that Tesla has done is essential for making batteries viable in the sorts of applications that people want to use them for to help solve our energy problems.
Possibly, but as I understand it, the software is tightly coupled to the battery hardware; if you were to swap in a different kind of cell, or even the same kind of cell but from a different manufacturer, you would have to rework much of the software. That's why I think it's better to view the storage cells and the software as a single integrated "battery" system.
Is it? I would imagine the software does that. The battery really is a large array of commodity batteries made by panosonic. Tesla is doing the gigafactory for vertical integration and to bolster it's own supply. Obviously, they have done a lot of innovation around the pack in terms of heat distribution and cell construction, as well as the management system. The innovation is really about the macro-cell construction and the software to manage the array. On a micro-level it is just a bunch of commodity batteries wites into small cells, that make up a large cell array.