Elon Musk Reveals Plans for His Million-Mile Battery
Tesla has made its "million-mile battery" into a concrete plan using additives and recycling.
Elon Musk's company has applied for battery patents and is threatening to move operations to a more "reopening"-friendly state.
The advances have come from partnering with a Chinese company and battery researchers.
Elon Musk has announced ambitious plans to make Tesla batteries that can live second and even third lives as they survive for a million miles. The mercurial billionaire has also announced plans to convert Tesla's “megafactories” into “terafactories” that are 30 times larger. And all of this is in service of Musk’s goals to turn Tesla into a power provider to compete with existing electric utilities.
Reuters reports that Tesla made the new million-mile battery design in collaboration with a Chinese company, and that Musk plans to launch the new battery in China first. That comes after Musk described China as a huge portion of Tesla’s business inquiries in an investor call several weeks ago.
“New, low-cost batteries designed to last for a million miles of use and enable electric Teslas to sell profitably for the same price or less than a gasoline vehicle are just part of Musk’s agenda,” Reuters reports. What does that mean? Even after a long life inside a car, where 200,000 miles is considered a great run depending on make, model, and other details, the battery can hypothetically be resold or recycled into use as part of a Tesla battery farm or home Powerwall system.
By planning for this long life with second or third or even more subsequent phases, Musk hopes to bring the cost of Tesla vehicles down. That’s on top of the natural price drop from advancing technology: Forbes reported earlier this year that the cost of battery cells in a Tesla car has “declined from $16k in 2016 to about $9k in 2019.”
Tesla developed the new battery with the help of a brain trust of battery researchers and a Chinese company called Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. Reuters reports:
“Tesla’s new batteries will rely on innovations such as low-cobalt and cobalt-free battery chemistries, and the use of chemical additives, materials and coatings that will reduce internal stress and enable batteries to store more energy for longer periods, sources said.”
Cobalt is costly, and mining it is fraught with human rights violations; removing as much as possible will save money and reduce demand on those troubled mines. Tesla has applied for patents for things like longevity additives and tabless battery designs.
On Twitter, Musk has become a vocal proponent of “reopening,” repeating iffy speculation about COVID-19 (coronavirus) in terms of how the closures are hurting his bottom line. He’s threatened to move Tesla’s operations from California to a more conservative state as soon as he’s able, although any such process would take a long time.
By announcing plans to scale his factories up, Musk has excited some people and worried others because of his checkered history with labor and workplace safety regulations. Is there a way to make batteries much faster and cheaper without sacrificing workplace conditions in some way? Only time will tell.
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