• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

AutoNews.NZ

  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
    • Medium-sized cars
    • Small cars
    • Large cars
    • 4x4s
    • People-movers
    • SUV-large
    • SUV-luxury
    • SUV-medium
    • SUV-compact
    • Sports cars
    • Luxury cars
    • Hybrid cars
    • Ute
  • Cars & Watches
  • Bike World
  • Tech
  • About Us
  • Videos
    • Spy videos
Home » Research: Tesla battery pack may last for more than million miles

Research: Tesla battery pack may last for more than million miles

September 24, 2019 by Alastair Sloane

By Daniel Oberhaus, of US website Wired

Last April, Elon Musk promised that Tesla would soon be able to power its electric cars for more than 1 million miles (1.62m km) over the course of their lifespan.

At the time, the claim seemed a bit much. That’s more than double the mileage Tesla owners can expect to get out of their car’s current battery packs, which are already well beyond the operational range of most other EV batteries. It just didn’t seem real—except now it appears that it is.

Earlier this month, a group of battery researchers at Dalhousie University, which has an exclusive agreement with Tesla, published a paper in The Journal of the Electrochemical Society describing a lithium-ion battery that “should be able to power an electric vehicle for over 1 million miles” while losing less than 10 per cent of its energy capacity during its lifetime.

Led by physicist Jeff Dahn, one of the world’s foremost lithium-ion researchers, the Dalhousie group showed that its battery significantly outperforms any similar lithium-ion battery previously reported. They noted their battery could be especially useful for self-driving robotaxis and long-haul electric trucks, two products Tesla is developing.

dahn-02
Physicist Jeff Dahn, one of the world’s foremost lithium-ion researchers.

What’s interesting, though, is that the authors don’t herald the results as a breakthrough. Rather, they present it as a benchmark for other battery researchers. And they don’t skimp on the specifics.

“Full details of these cells including electrode compositions, electrode loadings, electrolyte compositions, additives used, etc. have been provided,” Dahn and his colleagues wrote in the paper. “This has been done so that others can recreate these cells and use them as benchmarks for their own R+D efforts.”

Within the EV industry, battery chemistries are a closely guarded secret. So why would Dahn’s research group, which signed its exclusive partnership with Tesla in 2016, give away the recipe for such a seemingly singular battery?

According to a former member of Dahn’s team, the likely answer is that Tesla already has at least one proprietary battery chemistry that outperforms what’s described in the benchmark paper.

Indeed, shortly after the paper came out, Tesla received a patent for a lithium-ion battery that is remarkably similar to the one described in the paper. Dahn, who declined to comment for this article, is listed as one of its inventors.

Elon Musk has promised a Tesla that’s good for one million miles

The lithium-ion batteries described in the paper use lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide, or NMC, for the battery’s positive electrode (cathode) and artificial graphite for its negative electrode (anode). The electrolyte, which ferries lithium ions between the electrode terminals, consists of a lithium salt blended with other compounds.

NMC/graphite chemistries have long been known to increase the energy density and lifespan of lithium-ion batteries. (Almost all electric cars, including the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt, use NMC chemistries in their batteries, but notably not Tesla.)

The blend of electrolyte and additives is what ends up being the subject of trade secrets. But even those materials, as described in the paper, were well known in the industry. In other words, says Matt Lacey, a lithium-ion battery expert at the Scania Group who was not involved in the research, “there is nothing in the secret sauce that was secret!”

Instead, Dahn’s team achieved its huge performance boosts through lots and lots of optimizing of those familiar ingredients, and by tweaking the nanostructure of the battery’s cathode.

Instead of using many smaller NMC crystals as the cathode, this battery relies on larger crystals. Lin Ma, a former PhD student in Dahn’s lab who was instrumental in developing the cathode design, says this “single-crystal” nanostructure is less likely to develop cracks when a battery is charging. Cracks in the cathode material cause a decrease in the lifetime and performance of the battery.

Matt Lacey, Scania Sweden
Scania’s Matt Lacey: ‘Nothing in the secret sauce is secret.’

Through its partnership with Tesla, Dahn’s team was tasked with creating lithium-ion batteries that can store more energy and have a longer lifetime than commercially available batteries. In electric cars, these metrics translate to how far you can drive your car on a single charge and how many charges you can get out of the battery before it stops working.

Generally speaking, there’s a trade-off between energy density and battery lifetime—if you want more of one, you get less of the other. Dahn’s group was responsible for the seemingly impossible task of overcoming this trade-off.

The energy density of a lithium ion battery is one of the most important qualities in consumer electric cars like Tesla’s Model 3 (top). Customers want to be able to drive long distances on a single charge.

Tesla’s newer cars can get up to 370 miles per charge (600km), which is well beyond the range of electric vehicles from other companies. In fact, based on the average American commute, Dahn estimates that most EV owners use only about a quarter of a charge per day.

But to make a fleet of robotaxis or an empire of long-haul electric trucks, Tesla will need a battery that can handle full discharge cycles every day.The problem is that fully discharging and recharging every day puts greater stress on the battery and degrades its components more rapidly. a

But simply maintaining the current lifespan of a Tesla battery pack— about 300,000 to 500,000 miles (500,000 to 800,000km)—isn’t enough. Long-haul electric trucks and robotaxis will be packing in way more daily miles than your average commuter, which is why Musk wants a battery that can last for 1 million miles.

Musk asked, and Dahn delivered. As Dahn and his team detailed in their benchmarking paper, “one does not need to make a trade-off between energy density and lifetime anymore.”

Shirley Meng, University of San Diego
Shirley Meng: ‘Many many electric vehicle companies are pursuing batteries with higher nickel content.’

The team’s results show that their batteries could be charged and depleted more than 4000 times and lose only about 10 per cent of their energy capacity. For the sake of comparison, a paper from 2014 showed that similar lithium-ion batteries lost half their capacity after only 1000 cycles.

“Four thousand cycles is really impressive,” says Greg Less, technical director at the University of Michigan’s Energy Institute battery lab. “A million-mile range is easily doable with 4000 cycles.”

Just days after the publication of the benchmarking paper, Tesla and Dahn were awarded a patent that described a single-crystal lithium-ion battery almost identical to the batteries described in the paper. The patented battery includes an electrolyte additive called ODTO that the patent claims can “enhance performance and lifetime of Li-ion batteries, while reducing costs.”

It’s not certain that the battery described in the patent is the million-mile battery that Musk said would enter production next year, and neither Tesla nor Dahn are talking. But it’s a safe bet that Tesla’s proprietary battery performs even better.

Shirley Meng, who runs the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion at the University California San Diego, says many electric vehicle companies are pursuing batteries with higher nickel content than what Dahn’s paper and patent describe.

That approach can boost the energy density of a battery. Meng says the next step is to merge those higher-density designs with some high-performing mix of electrolytes and additives. Whether it’s the formula Dahn’s group perfected is an open question.

“I believe the ultimate goal of Jeff’s team is to demonstrate ultralong life in a high-nickel-content cathode, but perhaps they need a completely different mixture of the electrolyte additive cocktail,” Meng says. “I don’t think the same formula will work, and that’s why they released all the formulations.”

Whatever design ends up making it into production at Tesla’s massive Gigafactory, the signs are clear: a million-mile battery will be here soon.

 

 

Filed Under: Highlights, Industry news, Latest news Tagged With: Tesla

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Search

The Good Oil

French carmaker Renault has won the 2025 European Car of the Year award with the all-electric R5 supermini (pictured). It’s the brand’s second win in a row, following the new Scenic’s gong in 2024. The R5 led the vote count from start to finish from the 60 jurors in 23 countries. It received 353 points, beating the Kia EV3 (291 points) and the Citroen C3/e in third place with 215 points. It’s Renault’s eighth win in the 62-year history of the Coty award. The R5 goes on sale in the UK this month. There are two main drivetrains: a 90kW motor/40kWh battery model with a 300km range, and a 112kW/52kWh example with a 400km range. The R5 starts in price at £22.995, or $NZ50,000.

EU carmakers seek trade deal with Trump

BMW and Mercedes-Benz are among carmakers urging the European Union to get a favourable trade deal with US President Donald Trump. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) wants to keep open trade with both the US and China. It fears Trump, who promises heavy tariffs on Chinese imports to the US, will look unfavourably on countries that continue to trade freely with Beijing. Ola Kallenius, president of the group and chairman of the management board of MB, said in a letter to EU leaders:  “Overall, it is essential to recognise that trade with China and the US is most vital for the prosperity of the European economy.The EU should seek a grand bargain with the US and attempt to avoid a potential trade conflict.”

Diesel fuels EV concept for US military

A  go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move.  The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque.  The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

We are the World

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.

Footer

Electric G-Wagen takes you for spin

https://youtu.be/NwHbJ7HN1sU

Recent

  • Kia eyes further growth with $52,690 4WD ute 
  • Early morning glory on ice, Audi style
  • Volkswagen tackles Chinese with new ‘people’s car’ 
  • ‘I bought this car before Elon lost his mind’
  • 2024: Year of petrol-electric hybrids and Toyota’s 1:6:90 rule

Tags

Aston martin audi bentley BMW Car reviews Citroen Electric cars Electric vehicles Ferrari Fiat Chrysler Ford Ford Mustang Holden honda hyundai jaguar jeep kia land rover latest news Lexus Lotus Maserati mazda Mclaren mercedes Mercedes-Benz mini Mitsubishi Nissan NZ car sales peugeot porsche range rover skoda spy Subaru suzuki Tesla tips and advice Toyota videos Volkswagen volvo VW

Copyright © 2025 · WordPress Hosting by WPhost