[ad_1]
Thanks to radically better batteries, the world’s most valuable automaker wants to make cheaper cars in a few years. Mass production is said to be Tesla’s greatest strength.
It is well known that Elon Musk rejects measures against the corona pandemic. But on Tesla’s “Battery Day” they gave him a nice sight. The e-car maker invited some shareholders to its general meeting and subsequent presentation of its latest battery technology in the parking lot of its company’s headquarters in Palo Alto. Because the visitors had to keep their distance, Musk looked from his stage into a parking lot full of Teslas. “Like a Tesla drive-in,” Musk said cheerfully, “but a little hard to read in the room.”
The Tesla logo on a vehicle in Los Angeles on July 9, 2020.
But that’s rarely difficult for Musk, he knows exactly what his fans like to hear: “The cost curve for batteries doesn’t slope clearly enough,” Musk said to applause. “Electric cars are not yet affordable for everyone.” By improving battery cells, using different raw materials and production processes, Tesla will be able to reduce costs per kilowatt hour in a battery by 56% in a few years, with better performance.
The autonomy of an electric car with a new battery will increase by 54%. However, Tesla is keeping secret the basis from which the reductions will be achieved. The industry assumes that the threshold of $ 100 per kilowatt hour has to be below for electric cars to be as cheap as combustion engines.
The long-lasting “million-mile battery” that Tesla will develop with its Chinese partner CATL was also not mentioned. For the first time, Tesla wants to make batteries himself, also at the Berlin Gigafactory, which is currently being built. In 2022, when the new technology goes into series production, expect 100 gigawatt hours of capacity, about double what Tesla is producing with Panasonic at the first Gigafactory in Nevada.
By 2030, Tesla’s battery production will increase to three terawatt hours, although Tesla will continue to work with its previous partners, such as Panasonic or CATL in China.
Great promises
You should always attach a cautionary footnote to Tesla product events – none of the figures released have been independently verified, and Musk’s forecasts are not always accurate. On Tesla’s “Autonomy Day” a good year ago, the entrepreneur promised autonomous Teslas by 2020, which its owner can rent as an autonomous robotaxi; these are not yet in sight.
Instead, Musk made a brief digression that Tesla had to rewrite all of its autopilot codebase to make advances in driver assistance, a reminder that not all of Musk’s promises come true, especially when they were promised.
But Tesla’s leadership in battery technology is not disputed: Musk and Drew Baglino, his member of the propulsion and power board, divided the improvements that are expected to greatly improve the performance and price of Tesla models starting in 2022. Some, like the new battery design, were expected and some were not.
Battery Design: The new battery cells, called 4860, should be more than twice the diameter of those used previously and, thanks to a new design, do without the tab through which energy is transported from the cell. This not only simplifies production, but also leads to a five times higher energy density, six times more stored energy, and consequently 16 percent greater range.
“Dry” electrodes: Tesla wants to use a process called “dry” in the production of electrodes for its batteries. Solvents are no longer needed, which improves the performance of lithium-ion cells and, according to Baglino, accelerates production by a factor of 7. Tesla took over the startup Maxwell Technologies in 2019. During the acquisition, however , only the feasibility of the process was demonstrated, Musk said. Thanks to Tesla, it is now “close to going large.”
Anode production: Battery anodes are said to be made of silicon, which is cheaper than lithium and conducts better. Until now, the element has not been used in battery production because it expands and becomes unstable when charged. That’s included in the new battery design. The new material alone will increase the cars’ range by 20 percent.
Cathode production: The cathodes in most batteries are said to be made of nickel instead of cobalt. On the one hand, this reduces consumption of the conflict mineral, which is mined in Africa under inhumane conditions. On the other hand, it saves costs. Cobalt will only be needed in batteries for large cars like the Cybertruck or the long-advertised semi-trailer.
“Structural batteries”: The battery should no longer be just an energy accumulator, but a structural element of the car that also fulfills other functions. Musk compared it to a wing-shaped tank on an airplane, which improves flight behavior rather than just making the plane heavier. Structural batteries, for example, would ensure a more rigid design, increasing safety in the car, but also battery efficiency.
“Cars that don’t have this architecture will not be a competition for us,” Musk said. The Tesla boss knows how to combine technical details with big announcements. “In the long term, we want to be the best in car production,” he said. This is a bold announcement: Tesla has only been improving mass production since 2018 with great pain, and car testers and customers are still complaining about processing errors.
But Musk thinks he can beat not exactly radically innovative, but extremely process-driven, automakers in their own place. “Everyone will have long-range batteries at some point, everyone will have autonomous cars, but they will not all be good at production.” In the long run, they want to make 20 million cars, almost double the number of the entire Volkswagen Group in 2019.
Thanks to new batteries and production processes, driving an electric car will be cheaper than a combustion engine in a few years. In three years, a Tesla model will be possible for $ 25,000, a third cheaper than the Tesla Model 3 today and even VW’s ID3.
Initially, however, another Tesla model is in the foreground, which Musk announced in a commercial short: the Model S with Tesla’s new “Plaid” drivetrain. According to Tesla, the vehicle should reach a top speed of 320 kilometers per hour, have a range of 863 kilometers and drive a quarter mile in less than 9 seconds. Musk hasn’t announced a price yet, but it will likely exceed $ 25,000.
