Tesla develops batteries capable of running 1.6 million km without replacement

Batteries in electric cars are a weak link. Even if the battery is designed without engineering errors and does not fail, its service life is much shorter than that of the electric vehicle itself. Well, since the latter is an uptrend now, manufacturers are striving to improve batteries to make electric cars even more popular.



An engineering company that is developing various technological innovations for Tesla, is creating batteries that can withstand 1 million miles (over 1.6 million km) of the track without the need for replacement. Tesla Inc needs such batteries, and not only to please customers, but also for machines that will serve customers of Robotaxi - a service that the company plans to launch in the near future ( possibly next year ).



Speaking at the Tesla Autonomy Event, Elon Musk said that the company's electric vehicles are designed to withstand 1 million miles. This applies to the car as a whole, and its individual components. All except batteries. Current batteries need to be changed after 300 - 500 thousand miles of the traveled path.



The batteries mentioned above exist not only in the form of a project on paper. Test samples have already been released and tested . The results show that these batteries are truly capable of serving the electric car over 1.6 million kilometers of track. This is still a Li-Ion battery from the next-generation “single-chip” cathode and a new electrolyte.



The research team that conducts testing tests the batteries in different modes and with different loads. So, tests include a long-term charge-discharge cycle at temperatures of 20, 40 and 55 ° C, short-term storage under the same conditions and a few more modes. Batteries are tested with different electrolytes, including those that can provide fast battery charge.



As it turned out, even at a temperature of 40 ° C, batteries can withstand 4000 charge-discharge cycles. With the active cooling system used in the Tesla battery packs, the service life will be even higher, the batteries will be able to withstand about 6000 cycles.







According to the researchers, the new batteries are ideally suited for robotaxis, electric tractors and other vehicles that work constantly and for wear. For tractors that roll tens and hundreds of thousands of kilometers in a short time, this is especially important.





As far as one can judge, Tesla is gradually approaching several goals at once. One of them is the constant increase in the production of electric vehicles. The second is improving the quality of their cars and gradually increasing autonomy. In addition, the company expands the range of manufactured vehicles and provided services. And all this requires batteries - reliable, long-term, with the ability to quickly charge. If the new batteries can actually withstand 1.6 million km, then soon new electric cars will come onto the roads, which will last a very long time.