Video: Tearing down the Tesla Model S battery pack

Teslas

The lithium-ion battery pack is at the heart of any electric car.

Its cost, energy density, and safety features do as much as any other feature of an electric car to determine its success.

And battery packs from Tesla Motors differ from those built by virtually any other electric-car maker in at least one key aspect.

That is the use of thousands of small "commodity" format cells, similar to those made in the tens of millions each year to power smartphones, laptop computers, tablets, and numerous other consumer electronics.

More than 10 years ago, Tesla bet that the economies of scale from using those small cells would more than compensate for the increased complexity of wiring them together, monitoring their individual behaviors.

Other electric-car makers employ 100 or more larger cells, each with many times the energy capacity of the small Tesla cells.

The individual cells are just one of several unique features of a Tesla battery pack.

Now, you can see inside a Model S battery and view its distinctive features, courtesy of a YouTube video posted last week by Jehu Garcia, who describes himself as a do-it-yourself electric-car enthusiast. GreenCarReports