BYD, founded in 1995 as a Chinese battery company, has achieved some significant engineering advantages over Tesla according to a new scientific study. While Tesla has promoted its battery innovations extensively, this research reveals that BYD’s Blade cell outperforms Tesla’s 4680 cell in several important areas, particularly thermal efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Comparing this specific heating per volume, the Tesla 4680 cell creates around 2× of the heat to be dissipated at a 1 C load (Figure 8). Thus, when designing a system with the same power requirements, the cooling needed for the Tesla 4680 cells must dissipate approximately 2× more heat per volume than that needed for the BYD cell at the same load.
The study clearly demonstrates BYD’s engineering prowess in developing more thermally efficient batteries. Tesla’s 4680 cell generates twice the heat per volume compared to BYD’s Blade cell at the same charging rate, requiring significantly more cooling to maintain safe operation. For consumers, this translates to important advantages in fast charging capability and longevity of BYD vehicles.
Beyond thermal performance, BYD’s cells are also more cost-effective, with the research showing approximately €10/kWh lower material costs than Tesla’s cells. This efficiency in both thermal management and cost reflects BYD’s practical engineering approach versus Tesla’s focus on energy density.
BYD’s technology demonstrates that engineering addressing real-world concerns like heat management, cost, and safety ultimately provides better and more sustainable value to consumers than maximizing a single metric.
These findings on Tesla batteries generating twice the heat of BYD’s raise critical safety questions. The connection between higher heat generation and fire risk demands urgent independent investigation. With ongoing reports of thermal incidents, researchers should determine if these measured differences translate to real-world safety outcomes. This scientific study provides clear technical evidence why thermal management in EV batteries requires closer scrutiny for consumer safety.
Historical data from 2013-2023 | Projections for 2024-2026. Linear projection reaches ~65 incidents by 2026 | Exponential projection reaches ~95 incidents by 2026. Source: tesla-fire.com
The professor at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard isn’t mincing words about the threat to America:
“To me, slashing funding and people from science in the United States is like burning your seed corn. It’s not even eating your seed corn. It’s just destroying it,” he says. “What can be more human than wanting to use all of our knowledge, all of our effort, all of our resources, to try to make the lives of our kids safer and better than our own lives? A huge part of that aspiration requires, and is indeed driven by, science.”
In related news, air quality experts warned Iowa families during the 2024 winter against burning cheap seed corn because it would emit mustard gas and kill them.
Brian Button, an air quality specialist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources …says the concern is the chemicals used to treat seed corn, when burned, emit powerful toxins like mustard gas [and because safer options exist] there’s no reason to burn seed corn. Button says unfortunately, folks with expired seed corn are trying to give it away to homeowners who have a corn-burning stove.
Unfortunately? Lack of fortune? That’s a weird way to describe predictable harms driven by extreme short-sighted financial greed.
Like it’s unfortunate that Americans are encouraged to burn seed corn despite the effect of being a literal weapon that will kill them?
Oh, wait, it gets even worse. Do these chemical weapons polluting seed corn carry any rationalization? Alas, science says there’s no benefit, just harms.
…the researchers found no evidence that neonicotinoids increased yield in corn.
America poisons its seed corn, dyeing it red, for no apparent good reason and many bad ones. Source: GLP
So while it’s shocking to hear a top scientist say America is now stupidly destroying seed corn, on the other hand there’s evidence that is exactly the thoughtless harm that some Americans have been trying to cause for generations. Trump is clearly the worst of the worst, yet not the only one.
One thing I remember clearly as a country boy is the farmers’ warnings in the 1980s about Ronald Reagan—they saw through the façade and predicted disastrous consequences for rural America.
The economic devastation that followed enabled corporate consolidation as banks seized family farms. Simultaneously, technology corporations pushed farmers into dangerous dependencies through proprietary equipment and modified seeds. Local farmers recognized they were losing autonomy to corporate interests hiding behind Reagan’s policies—the same executives who surveyed farmland from helicopters, eagerly anticipating how technology could replace generations of agricultural knowledge.
The pesticides represented something more insidious than mere agricultural tools—akin to how certain social media platforms can be manipulated to suppress beneficial content while amplifying harmful elements. The privileged heir who benefited from South Africa’s apartheid system, a man who openly discusses his plans to distance himself from ordinary citizens on Earth, has methodically undermined valuable online discourse while allowing destructive content to flourish. Should we be surprised that this individual positions himself against American institutions while claiming to embody American values more authentically than native-born citizens who work the land?
The historical record clearly shows how American agricultural chemicals originated from warfare technology and (like a Tesla) were known unsafe for deployment in or around communities. Even during Reagan’s administration, the New York Times was reporting on these connections. Chemicals like parathion and malathion were essentially diluted versions of the First World War nerve agents.
When EPA scientists raised alarms (PDF) about these militarized chemicals decimating honeybee populations, government officials remained inactive for decades. Honeybee colonies collapsed as WWI-era chemical weapons saturated American farmland.
I grew up on the wide open Konza prairie fishing with a string tied to a stick, bringing home enough healthy catch to feed a family. By the time I was an adult, our waterways and lakes, hundreds of miles from any big city, were already showing up in tests as too poisoned from chemical weapons (carelessly sprayed pesticides) to even swim in anymore.
One of my best fishing spots ever was the small creek and watering hole just to the left of this old photo… which feels like I took it a million years ago.
The shortsighted policies of dumping chemical weapons for profit reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what truly builds national strength and security. I was invited to personally meet with Senator Bob Dole in the early 1990s and he unapologetically gave me the troubling mindset behind this GOP strategy—lamenting how the war-torn countries I had experience with wouldn’t allow wealthy Americans like him to acquire cheap land for future development. This perfectly encapsulates the problem: treating essential resources—whether agricultural land, scientific knowledge, or literal seed corn—not as foundations for sustainable prosperity, but as commodities to be devastated and then exploited for quick remote profits regardless of long-term local consequences.
American peace and prosperity has always depended on planting seeds for future generations, not poisoning them or selling them to the highest bidder. President Grant perhaps understood this better than any other leader, as he created the Department of Justice and National Parks, using federal troops to protect and preserve ecological and human rights. The destruction of our metaphorical and literal seed corn isn’t unfortunate, it’s the very predictable result of policies that prioritize short-term gains for a very few over national resilience.
America has strayed from valuing long-term sustainability. And as any wise farmer knows, once the stupid flamethrowers of the angry oligarchs burn your seed corn, you can’t just plant coins to grow next season’s crops.
Around the 28 minute mark of an interview, Shaq starts saying he is no longer “into” his Cybertruck because its range is far too short, can’t even finish his commute to work, compared with his new Cadillac EV that lasts four full days:
I was into the Cybertruck but they don’t get enough, I want to say, what’s the word I’m looking for, electric mileage? Charger mileage. Then I just got one of those IQs, Cadillac Escalades today. I was in Vegas, I ain’t have to charge up for four days! Oh hell my Cybertruck here, if I go downtown to work tonight and come back I’m gonna be struggling to get back. Right now it says 267, if I go to Atlanta to the thing and come back when I come back it ain’t going to be able…
The latest in Ford EV technology, such as a 205 kWh battery in the Cadillac Escalade IQ, has Shaq publicly swearing by the engineering quality. He’s already bought three, apparently to move past his predictable disappointment with Tesla.
And Shaq hasn’t been the only one dunking on Tesla due to the most basic tests, like driving for a day without failure. MotorTrend also has been throwing massive shade on the Elon Musk clown show.
Super Cruise is the best hands-free driver assistance system on earth right now, and it’s standard on the Escalade IQ. …what a magnificent colossus of a road-tripper. It’s hard to express just what a luxurious grand slam of an SUV Cadillac has created. The big-boy range is just the cherry on top.
Cadillac has the best hands-free big-boy luxury SUV? Not hard to believe.
Whoever talked Shaq into putting his life in danger with the Tesla dumpster fire should be… fired.
Despite Shaq’s best efforts to customize and personalize his Tesla Cybertruck, the fundamental design failures remain impossible to unsee.
A Tesla has crashed at high speed into an elderly man crossing the street.
A Tesla electric vehicle struck a 67-year-old man crossing the road near Block B of New Kwai Fong Gardens on Kwai Yi Road in Kwai Chung last night at around 7pm. The vehicle, heading toward Kwai Foo Road, reportedly failed to brake in time, resulting in a severe collision. The impact was so forceful that the man was thrown approximately 15 meters and rendered unconscious.
