Tesla’s Four Million Mile Battery

A LiO² battery is also known as a lithium-air battery (Li for lithium, O² for oxygen). Unlike the Li-ion or LFP batteries in EVs today, a lithium-air battery uses oxygen ions to store energy, not lithium ions. This difference means their internal structure and chemistry needs to be entirely different from established battery technology. Furthermore... See more

Dahn and his team solved this with a single crystal NMC 532 cathode. This has much higher levels of manganese (30%) and cobalt (20%), which makes it more efficient. Also, rather than being loads of crystals squashed together, they have been formed into one cohesive crystal, which means there are very few falts for degradation to take hold, which ma... See more

This is a very new technology. It could be decades before it is developed enough to be put into a car. The high levels of cobalt could also be a huge issue. Not only is cobalt more than twice as expensive as any other battery metal, but its mining is environmentally and humanely dubious. Many companies, including Tesla, want to have cobalt-free bat... See more

This is where Professor Jeff Dahn Of Dalhousie University comes in. He and his team partnered up with Tesla in 2016 to create the Tesla Advanced Battery Research division. Their primary goal is to make batteries last longer, they also aim to increase energy density and decrease costs. Prof Dahn recently published a study showing the world the fruit... See more