Are we facing a big change in Tesla battery technology?
James Martin / CNET
Tesla may already have something big up its sleeve this year: an affordable, long-lasting battery that allows electric cars to achieve the same cost as gasoline-powered cars.
Reuters A report was released on Thursday citing sources closely related to the company’s battery program. It largely corresponds to the previous knowledge that we have received from this so-called “million-mile” battery – this is a million miles of total use, no range with a single charge. According to the sources of the publication, the battery comes from a joint development project with the Chinese company Contemporary Amperex Technology and various battery experts. We have heard these two information nuggets in the past. In fact, Dalhousie University in Canada has published a research paper Detailing this type of battery last September. The university happens to have an exclusive agreement with Tesla.
CATL’s contribution comes in the form of battery chemistry dispenses with expensive cobaltor minimal amounts of the resource. Mermaiding the most expensive part of a battery and adding new materials and additives to store more energy for longer periods of time could mean a massive breakthrough for lithium-ion units. It is not the holy grail of Solid state batteries – a radically different and so far too expensive technology – but it could still be big.
Along with this new battery, Reuters sources mentioned a new battery production process that will reduce labor costs and allow Tesla to increase production within “terafactories” with the potential to take up 30 times the space Gigafactory 1 in Nevada does.
Where all of this comes together is the ability to integrate these batteries into the entire power grid. We have heard whispers about Tesla’s goals to compete with utilities, particularly in the UK Autobidder program. The system promotes energy sharing and derives electricity from participating battery farms, solar panels, or whatever. The person who is sharing receives a payday because they may not currently need the energy, but another person may. Tesla has also long been interested in “Second Life” applications for its vehicle batteries – if they are no longer useful for a vehicle, they can still act as a storage unit.
According to the sources of the release, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk plans to announce this battery breakthrough earlier this year, possibly at the planned Battery Day later this month. When the unit is ready to launch, it is said to arrive in China first, and optimized versions are on the table for other countries, including the United States. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the rumors.