Electric vehicles continue to enjoy a rapid uptick in acceptance, but they have a glaring
drawback; the battery!
While the battery is crucial to the operation of an electric car, it is
also holding it back in many aspects!
However, a new breakthrough is about to solve the issues current EVs have with the battery
and help Elon Musk achieve a long range electric car!
What does the sulfur battery, the new battery, offer?
How does the sulfur battery manage to offer 900 miles per charge?
Join us as we explore the all-new 900 miles sulfur battery that changes everything!
Elon Musk is bullish about battery-powered cars!
Thanks to his long-term vision, grit, and ingenuity, he has built a monster company
that is on track to make 1.5 million electric cars this year alone!
Each of these cars has a battery, which happens to be their
weak point!
This is why battery research never stops, as we haven't even neared peak
battery performance yet.
As such, a new battery is in town that blows everything before
it out of the water!
This is the sulfur battery, and it promises incredible performances!
But before we look at the company behind the new sulfur battery, what battery problems
does Musk's Tesla have to solve?
The first one is the cost!
Musk has always wanted to make a 25,000 dollar car that
would accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles.
However, he has not been able to reach that price point!
Even the Model 3 that started around the 35,000 dollar mark has
now jumped by about 10,000 dollars!
The biggest culprit is the battery, which is the
most expensive single component!
Thanks to the battery, the powertrain accounts for
about half the cost of an electric car!
But why are EV batteries so expensive?
It is largely because of what goes in them!
An EV uses the same rechargeable lithium-ion
batteries that are in your laptop or mobile phone; they are just much bigger.
The priciest component in each battery cell is the
cathode.
The materials needed in cathodes to pack in more energy are often expensive;
metals including cobalt, nickel, lithium, and manganese.
They need to be mined and processed into high-purity chemical compounds.
Like what prices are we talking about?
Tesla doesn't reveal the cost of its batteries but
using current rates and pack sizes, the average battery cost for a typical EV works out
to about $6,300.
However, Tesla car batteries will cost much more per car because they
often offer the longest ranges in the industry!
It is true that battery pack prices have come down a lot, in fact, by 89 percent over
the past decade, according to BloombergNEF.
But the industry average price of $137 for a kilowatt of power for an
hour is still above the $100 threshold at an EV's cost should match a car with an
internal-combustion engine.
To worsen matters, costs aren't falling as quickly as Musk
hopes, and raw materials prices have been climbing!
The other battery problem Tesla is trying to solve is battery weight!
Tesla cars weigh significantly more than comparable internal
combustion engine models, and the accusing finger points at the battery again!
For instance, the standard Model 3 comes with a 50 kWh battery, and the Long Range
version comes with a 75 kWh long-range battery.
The standard Model 3 battery weighs 478 kg, while the Long Range weighs even more
at 530 kg!
And that is after the many improvements the company has made to its
battery!
The battery weight problem is a huge deal for Tesla, who will soon start delivering
the Semi truck!
The truck must be able to travel long distances, like cross country delivery,
while pulling up to 40,000 tons!
A 900 miles range, for instance, will let the Tesla truck
compete well with diesel-powered big rigs.
If the Semi truck must succeed, Musk has to find a solution to both the cost and weight
problems of EV batteries!
This is where the sulfur battery comes in!
This new battery, in one fell swoop, will fix the
two battery problems Tesla has and usher in a new age of electric cars!
Tesla can easily meet up with a 900 mile range truck!
Berlin-based Theion is a developer of lithium-sulfur cathode technology.
The company has now appointed Dr. Ulrich Ehmes as CEO.
Ehmes is coming in to lead the upcoming commercial effort of its Crystal Battery.
Dr. Ehmes has a long track record of industrializing battery production at companies
such as Leclanché.
He also serves on the Board of major battery research clusters
funded by the German Ministry of Research and Education and is a member of
European and German battery associations.
Ehmes will bring the experience to the fore by helping Theion
commercialize its innovative lithium-sulfur cathode technology.
The new sulfur battery targets triple the range and usage time compared
to conventional lithium-ion cells!
Theion operates three locations within Berlin, specializing in cell design, prototyping,
and testing.
Theion is expanding by adding manufacturing facilities to accelerate its
mass production roadmap, beginning in Berlin.
Locations for later gigafactories will soon be determined.
They will be located close to the customers, i.e., EV makers.
As such, the company will likely set up production
plants in Europe, Asia, and the US.
Theion's patented production process combines sulfur's crystal material properties with
carbon nanotubes and a proprietary solid electrolyte.
Theion grows a pure sulfur wafer by a Direct Crystal Imprinting method with
no slurry coating, no solvents, no water, and
no drying, directly from molten sulfur in a few seconds.
Because of the flexibility of the process, the company can grow any geometrical
shape of wafer adapted to a customer's product shape; Theion suggests
a hexagonal shape for space-efficiency reasons.
Theion removes nearly all volumetric fluctuation of sulfur at the wafer level by a special
conversion process; the cathode can work at low porosity.
By adding conductive paths, the company maximizes the use of the active
material to achieve a high energy density.
A proprietary solid-state polymer electrolyte operates in the voids of the sulfur wafer.
In Gen 1 and Gen 2 Crystal cells, Theion will
use lithium metal foil as anodes.
The battery technology is compatible with a bipolar cell
arrangement to maximize energy and power content.
The cell stack is then assembled into a housing that geometrically best fits the
customer's application to maximize module-pack-system energy content.
But why is Theion going with sulfur instead of other materials?
The company says that sulfur is about 99 percent cheaper to source
than cathode materials.
It is often produced as a byproduct of several industrial processes
anyway.
This makes it far more abundant than any rare earth material used presently
in battery manufacturing worldwide.
In other words, sulfur is cheap!
A single charge can be enough to take a car to run 900 miles which is impossible with
the lithium-ion cells in the present day!
The battery cost and weight would have been prohibitive!
Ehmes explained existing battery technology uses nickel, manganese, and cobalt for
the cathode.
It is called NMC 811 because it has 80 percent nickel, 10 percent cobalt,
and 10 percent manganese.
He said in Theion's case, they swapped this NMC 811 with
sulfur.
So there is no nickel, manganese, or cobalt.
Theion also replaced the current collective folds of copper and aluminum with
graphene, a special material.
Theion's lithium sulfur battery targets a gravimetric energy density of greater than
1,000 Wh per kg, a volumetric energy density of
1500 Wh per liter, and a power capability of
about 12,000 W per kg.
The new battery will survive cycles of above 1,000 at an
operational temperature range of between minus 20 degrees Celsius and 60 degrees
Celsius.
Since lithium sulfur batteries offer three times more energy capacity than conventional
lithium ion batteries for the same weight, it means Tesla's higher performance vehicles
can significantly increase their driving ranges.
For example, the Cybertruck is promised to offer 500 miles, but what if Tesla uses
Theion's battery?
That will yield more than one thousand miles!
And Tesla doesn't have to worry about the cost because it will actually
come down!
Similarly, the Model 3 Long Range will have close to one thousand miles between
charges if Tesla doesn't change anything about the car's weight while using a sulfur
battery!
Tesla is also prepping the new generation Roadster, offering more than 600 miles.
It is just a little leap for the company to deliver
more than 900 miles of driving range while still cutting the weight.
However, the best candidate for the sulfur battery among Tesla's future lineup is the
Semi truck!
Currently, even Musk admits the truck is ideal for shorter hauls along fixed
routes.
For example, Tesla is testing the trucks on runs between the Fremont and
Nevada factories, a stretch of about 400 miles and about 11 hours of driving.
The Semi can significantly step up its range using sulfur batteries, which can push the
range into the 1,000 miles territory.
Tesla will even be able to reduce the weight significantly, which will affect braking,
loading capacity, handling, etc.
Let's hear what you think of the new sulfur battery in the comment section below