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Tesla Car Battery
The Tesla car battery, the Californian tycoon has not provided data on what type of car we can expect, much less on its characteristics.
Recently there was speculation about a compact hatchback version of the Tesla Models.
Although a sketch of a compact car made in China was leaked earlier this year for the whole world.
Therefore, it is not clear which car it will be, but it does seem clear that Tesla’s cheapest car will be smaller than current models.
More powerful, durable, and cheaper batteries
- To make the production of a more affordable electric car plausible, Tesla will begin to manufacture a new generation of batteries.
- For electric vehicles that promise to be more powerful, durable, and cost half that of current cells.
- This last aspect of the price is a determining factor in making the electric car cheaper since batteries currently account for around a third of its production cost.
- Specifically, Tesla’s new, more giant cylindrical cells, dubbed ‘4680 Cells’ due to their diameter (46mm) and height (80mm).
- It will provide five times more energy, six times 16% more power. Autonomy, Musk said.
- As explained by Musk, the cost reduction goes through recycling the battery cells at his Giga-factory in Nevada.
- It is reducing the use of cobalt one of the most expensive materials to practically zero.
- A decision that contrasts with the agreement reached with the British miner Glencore.
Specifications
- It could supply it with up to 6,000 tons of cobalt per year, necessary for its expected million-mile battery, made up of a nickel-cobalt-aluminum alloy.
- Be that as it may, Tesla has been reducing the use of cobalt in its lithium-ion batteries over the years.
It seems that it will go further from 2016 to the present. - That amount reduces to 7 kg per vehicle with the new Model S and Model X, and for Model 3, the cobalt reduces to 4.5 kg.
- Instead of cobalt, the chemical elements that will gain weight in the new batteries’ composition will be nickel and silicon.
- Both are easier and cheaper to extract, but the physicochemical properties of the second, together with the new design of the electrodes.
- It reduces the batteries’ degradation as they add charge and discharge cycles. Tesla expects battery life to increase by 20%.
Main Innovations
- Another of the main innovations that, it seems, will make it possible to make your new batteries easier to manufacture.
- It is cheaper is to eliminate the component that acts as an interface between the cells and the device to which they transfer energy.
- Also, they have redesigned the cells to reduce the path that electrons must follow to avoid failure due to overheating.
- Eliminating elements means reducing weight and volume and consequently weighing less on the electric car’s autonomy.
- Production capacity will multiply by 85 in three years.
- Tesla will produce the new battery cells initially on a new assembly line near its vehicle plant in Fremont, California.
Production
- The production is planned to reach ten giga-watt hours a year by the end of 2021.
- To put it in context, Tesla and its partner Panasonic now have a production capacity of around 35 GWh at the Nevada macro battery factory.
- However, the firm expects those figures to increase by 85 in just three years to 3 terawatts-hour per year, or 3,000 gigawatt-hours.
- Achieving these figures among other things making current and future battery factories is much more productive.
