a revolution is afoot in the world of
electric vehicles
major breakthroughs in chemistry
material science and structural
engineering
will soon help evs drive further charge
faster and cost a lot less at the
dealership
and it's basically all happening on one
company's watch
so what can we expect from the next
generation of tesla batteries
how are they different and is this the
final nail in the coffin for the
gas-guzzling internal combustion engine
join us now as we speak truth to power
and investigate tesla's new battery
first let's examine why this new kind of
battery is needed in the first place
tesla ceo elon musk is a great believer
in what business dorks called
vertical integration that means smart
manufacturing firms like tesla
try to make as much as they can from
sprockets to steering wheels
in-house instead of relying too heavily
on outside suppliers
frustratingly for musk he's currently
dependent on japanese electronics giant
panasonic
for tesla's all-important lithium-ion
battery cells
musk has roundly criticized panasonic
for what he sees as its sluggish
manufacturing base
a significant drag factor on what he's
described as his production hell
during the model 3 rollout in 2018. in
fairness panasonic's ceo kazuhiro tsuga
candidly predicts his own firm's
batteries will probably just
run out if tesla goes on expanding so in
the name of vertical integration
musk is pushing to manufacture tesla
batteries in-house
not for cheese pairing corporate reasons
either he believes with his hand-picked
team
including eminent lithium-ion pioneer
jeff dahn tesla can
and will manufacture batteries that go
further last
longer and cost less if they pull it off
it will overcome many of the stumbling
blocks to universal ev adoption
for instance the specter of so-called
range anxiety which puts potential
customers off for the perfectly legit
reason
they're scared of running out of juice
miles from a charger
another is affordability we need to make
more affordable cars
says musk plainly one of the things that
troubles me most
is that we don't have a truly affordable
car and that's something we will have in
the future
for that he says we need cheaper
batteries how will tesla achieve this
by halving the cost per kilowatt hour of
its next generation automobile batteries
this will happen musk declared during
his splashy battery day announcement
last autumn
via a five-pronged assault prong 1
obviously enough is to revisit battery
cell design
tesla's great innovation here is what's
called tablet technology
in a conventional lithium ion battery
electrons flow from the cathode through
a tab
a separate component that has to be
manufactured and welded onto the cell
on the new simpler tables tesla battery
this pretty shingled spiral is created
when battery foils are laser-cut and
folded over each other
that means electrons can pass in and out
of the battery more freely
imagine the interior of regular tapped
batteries as like an airplane fuselage
with only one exit
some passengers electrons in this
metaphor will take much longer to
disembark than others which creates
overheating and inefficiency
tablets batteries are more like an
airplane with an exit on every row
so electrons can escape more rapidly and
efficiently
prong two of tesla's five prong strategy
is to revamp the very battery
manufacturing process
itself the current wet process beloved
by panasonic and
others for manufacturing cells is
complex time consuming
and occupies a vast factory footprint
tesla's new groundbreaking dry solvent
method is still somewhat in development
even musk concedes it won't be ready for
well over a year but if
when they nail it it'll use 10 times
less energy and occupy a 10 times
smaller physical footprint
that kind of reduction wouldn't just g
on production at the gigafactory by the
way
it will reshape the entire battery
industry forever prong 3 revisits the
fundamental material used in tesla's
anode that compartment of the battery
where the lithium ions are stored ready
for deployment
graphite is presently the favorite
material for the job but
silicon the most abundant element in the
earth's crust after oxygen
could be a game changer if that is tesla
can stabilize its anode silicon
with a coating of elastic ion conducting
polymer pull that off and tesla vehicle
range will be extended by 20
at a stroke step 4 is about the cathode
which houses ions shorn of electrons
after they've departed the anode for now
cobalt is the preferred material but the
downsides are hefty
cobalt is environmentally destructive to
mine and toxic to the health of
vulnerable miners who labor under
threadbare safety regimes
so tesla is looking to diversify the
material in its cathodes
using a mixture of iron lithium and
nickel extracted from regulated sources
in the usa
this extraction process alone has led to
its own breakthroughs
not least a new process device for
deriving lithium from clay
tesla reckons there's enough lithium in
the clay soil of nevada alone to
transition
every vehicle on earth to electric the
fifth prong of tesla's approach
is the most striking of all in order to
reduce vehicle mass by 10
and use fewer parts the plan is to
integrate the battery cell
into the body of the car itself this
so-called structural battery will use a
honeycomb structure to keep
light and strong with nothing less than
the world's largest factory casting
machine and the company's own patented
alloy
tesla will integrate its new battery
into the car chassis itself
in musk's words safety won't be
compromised as a structural battery
provides better torsional rigidity
and improved polar moment of inertia
this
says musk with a flourish is a major
breakthrough it certainly saves 370
parts which in turn makes manufacturing
and scale up a whole lot simpler tesla's
nifty integrated design might have been
indirectly inspired by the common
aerospace practice of using cavities in
wings for fuel tanks reducing material
use and weight
via imaginative multitasking proper
manufacturing
out of the new battery casually named
the 4680 is still a year off at least
but at one dedicated pilot plant in
california tesla is already working
towards an impressive
10 gigawatt hours of 4680 production a
year
that'll ultimately help free tesla from
its unhappy marriage of convenience with
panasonic
and move the company close to its long
promised 20 000
mass market ev in practical terms the
4680 will increase range by as much as
54
that'll hopefully soothe the nerves of
all those range anxiety sufferers
it'll also create a 56 drop in vehicle
cost per kilowatt-hour which in turn
might flog a few more teslas over the
coming decade
as for our mate elon build the machine
that builds the machine mask
the greatest advantage is that sweet
investment cost reduction per kilowatt
of 69
nice what do you think will superior
tablet batteries finally persuade the
average citizen to go electric
let us know in the comments and don't
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