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Power Transportation

Can Tesla Build Cheaper Electric Cars With Advanced (and Cobalt-Free) Batteries? (forbes.com) 280

Posted by EditorDavid from the better-batteries dept.
"One of the main reasons we're not all driving electric vehicles is the price," argues a transportation writer in Forbes — explaining how Tesla hopes to finally change that: The company is placing a huge bet on rechargeable battery technology that doesn't use cobalt. This is one of the main elements making lithium ion batteries so expensive. It's also fraught with political issues, since the mining can be in conflict areas like the Congo, and its production is considered quite polluting of the environment. But cobalt is used because it enables the energy density required in batteries intended to last for hundreds of miles per charge. A couple of months ago, it was revealed that Tesla was working with CATL on lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, and these could be the real gamechanger. LFP batteries don't use cobalt and have a roadmap to push well past the magical $100 per kWh (wholesale) that is considered the threshold for EVs being cheaper than Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles...

Tesla has also recently patented technology for cathodes that significantly improves the number of charge cycles... The new Tesla technology, patented by the company's battery team led by Jeff Dahn, can increase charge cycles to nearly 4,000, which would be more like 75 years if charged once a week — hence the talk of million-mile batteries. More recently, the Tesla team headed by Jeff Dahn patented some new technology for lithium metal/anode free batteries, which could drastically improve energy density and thereby considerably reduce costs. These technologies, if they become commercially viable, could revolutionize battery durability and price, and there's another technology called all-polymer batteries on the horizon that is being developed by a former Nissan senior researcher, which he claims could cut 90% off the current price.

But these are improvements for the future that may not happen, and cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate batteries are here now. Tesla will be using LFP for the batteries in its Chinese Model 3, after receiving government approval to do so. It is estimated that using LFP batteries will allow a 15-20% reduction in manufacturing cost. Taking calculations regarding how much of a car's cost is batteries into account, this could make EVs a mere 10% more expensive than ICE instead of 30%, which will be easy to regain in cheaper running costs over a year or two of ownership. It will also give EVs an even greater lead over fuel-cell technology, making it even less likely that hydrogen will be the future of electric cars.

The time is fast approaching when EVs are not just more ecological and cheaper to run than ICE cars, but cheaper to buy too, and batteries free of cobalt are a key step in that direction. That's why Tesla's shift to LFP is so significant — it could be the final nail in the coffin for fossil fuel vehicles.
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Can Tesla Build Cheaper Electric Cars With Advanced (and Cobalt-Free) Batteries? More

Can Tesla Build Cheaper Electric Cars With Advanced (and Cobalt-Free) Batteries?

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  • Lithium Iron Phosphate in a Humber Vogue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by caviare ( 830421 ) on Sunday July 12, 2020 @11:23PM (#60292128)

    An associate of mine completed a DIY conversion of a classic British car, the Humber Vogue. It does indeed use Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. You can read all about it here:

    http://electricvogue.blogspot.... [blogspot.com]

    • Re:Lithium Iron Phosphate in a Humber Vogue (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @04:54AM (#60292732) Homepage

      They're not using LFP because it's some "new superbattery". They're only used in their China factory, and only for the short-range vehicle (energy density in LFP still sucks compared to nickel-based chemistries, and will continue to, because it has a lower voltage, but most of the cell is otherwise identical except for the cathodes, so it's hard to come up with a big improvement that doesn't also help nickel-based chemistries). The simple fact is, the China factory is growing rapidly and must feed. It's consuming cells from local suppliers because that's all that's available. And LFP suffices well for the shorter-range Model 3 SR+.

      Tesla's internal cell production line is an entirely different thing. Codenamed "Roadrunner", the new production line has been prototyped at Tesla's Kato Road facility, not far from their Fremont factory. Initially, we could only speculate on what they were doing based on Tesla's acquisitions and patent filings. They bought Maxwell for their non-solvent-based powder binders, to eliminate the costly and energy-hungry vacuum ovens. They appear to have stealthily acquired SilLion, which points to silicon-rich anodes. They patented a production system for making numerous cells at once and linking blocks of cells together with integrated flow channels, intumencent, and phase-change materials. They also patented "tabless" cells which have current flow from top to bottom rather than core to exterior. Things like this gave some clues, but not much.

      More recently, however, we got a huge spate of clues [fremont.gov] from an environmental filing with the city of Fremont. Cathode chemistry is NCA and NMC - nothing new there. Not cobalt free. This could change in the future - Dahn's research for Tesla shows that cobalt probably ultimately isn't necessary in nickel-based chemistries - but it's there for now.

      Note that if cobalt requirements are low enough, you can get them as a byproduct / impurity in the nickel sulfate. However, the materials section specifically mentions cobalt sulfate, so it's an input.

      They appear to be making their own cathode and anode materials onsite in the Page building. It's difficult to see what they're planning with the anodes. I see nothing suggestive of finished anodes, graphite, amorphous carbon precursors, or anything containing silicon at all. The extreme conclusion would be that they're outright using metallic Li anodes, which would be a massive breakthrough. But it could just be that there's no hazardous chemicals being used in their manufacture in the Page building, and thus no reason to list them.

      A vague "Electrolyte solution" is listed for the Kato building. But they do list one specific component: DMC. There's no mention of EC. The latter is important for creating a strong SEI on the anode, which protects it, but is also implicated in the formation of dendrites. EC could be gone, or it could just be part of the vague "electrolyte solution". Yet why mention DMC specifically? If EC is gone, they need a way to create a strong SEI, or otherwise prevent anode-electrolyte reactions.

      There's one more really curious chemical: titanium butoxide. Titanium is not common in li-ion batteries. Titanium butoxide is sometimes used to produce anodes for a specific chemistry (lithium titanate). But these are really the opposite of what Tesla is seeking - yes, they have incredible stability and C rates, but very low energy density (in part due to low voltages), and correspondingly high prices.

      However, I have encountered research which might possibly explain this: a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30662986/". It's possible to form a TiO2/lithium n-butoxide *artificial solid SEI* on the anode. This does not function as the intercalating medium (no impact to voltage), but rather...
      replaces the SEI that one normally relies on EC to create. In the above paper, it's done for lithium metal anodes, but the

    • I'm still driving my 1998 (MY99) Impreza WRX. It has 160,000km/100k miles on the clock, despite being almost 22 years old, and my plan is to convert it to electric maybe a decade from now. You know, when the last gas stations are being converted to shops/commercial space/housing.

      As for charging points, I'll get one installed at home, along with a powerwall to go with my solar panels. The shops are 3km away so I don't exactly need a charge point there. In fact, I usually ride a bicycle to the shops anyway

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday July 12, 2020 @11:25PM (#60292132)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 )

      Even if the batteries were free, I do not think we'd "all" be driving EVs for a while, until the number of available and suitable vehicles rises, and the infrastructure is reliable enough for most people not to worry about it any more than they worry about gas.

      This is truth, if you drive through any city in the evening, you'll see plenty of cars parked on the street because there aren't enough garages. In apartment complexes that do have parking available, the vast majority have no car chargers (or maybe a few token car chargers).

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Xenna ( 37238 )

        Seriously? You don't have public chargers? In my country there are public chargers in many places. Just plug in, swipe a card and the car will be charged (and so will you credit card). Chargers are cheap and can be placed anywhere there's electricity. In my country (Netherlands) hardly anyone has a garage and if they do they usually use it as storage instead of parking.

        The tax benefits make it relatively cheap to drive electric cars so many people do. Lot's of Tesla's around here.

        • Lot's of Tesla's around here.

          So, how many is "lots"? Tens of thousands? Thousands? Hundreds? You've seen two on the same day?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sique ( 173459 )
            Today, I was just out to buy some tea, and I've seen three Teslas. And I'm not living in the Netherlands.

          • I'd wager in the parent poster's country, the Netherlands, that car ownership is a lot smaller generally because of the country's excellent availability of alternative transit options -- bikes, scooters, trams, subways, buses and longer distance rail. Plus it's small and compact, so the distances involved are not very large.

            I was surprised at how many cars there still were when I visited 2 years ago, but honestly, it's the kind of place where an electric golf cart would be a viable alternative and there we

            • Re:Is the battery a big part of the cost? (Score:5, Interesting)

              by jbengt ( 874751 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @08:39AM (#60293184)
              I'm working on the design of a new parking lot with ±1,700 spaces. It is mandated by codes and regulations that 5% of the spaces have EV charging ports and that infrastructure is put in place to raise that to 20% in the future. This is a new requirement - last year, during the preliminary planning stages, only 1% to 2% was required. This isn't in a red state, but still, that shows the trend.

              • I mean probably the relatively low number of charging spaces in existing parking areas is the big expense of installing the charging infrastructure, from charging posts/pillars to the not insubstantial wiring required for high-current charging.

                Most parking in the US is either outdoor paved asphalt/concrete or in nearly completely poured concrete structures and I can see where this makes for really high costs for retrofit. Even in new construction you'd be talking significant dollars per EV-enabled parking

        • You're never assured a public charger is free. On the other hand, if you're paying for gas the economics of the situation is that a pump is vary likely to be free as you drive up.

      • Wireless charging for cars is definitely going to start appearing soon. Patents have already been issued, and demonstration products are appearing.
        It might take a while to reach commercial production, but could drastically change the way electric vehicles are used and perceived.

        • How would wireless charging be helpful at all?

          • Wireless charging can help in several ways.
            Firstly, it should be possible to install chargers on roads, so vehicles are actually charged as they drive, and secondly, it makes static charging installation far less intrusive, and less subject to vandalism (apparently something of a problem). If there's no cable, you can't cut it, unplug it, drive into it, etc.

            And of course it should be somewhat safer, and easier to use.

            All good, really. The only questions remaining are its efficiency, and cost of installation

            • Re:Is the battery a big part of the cost? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @04:59AM (#60292746)

              it should be possible to install chargers on roads, so vehicles are actually charged as they drive

              Firstly, wireless charging is less efficient, there are losses involved. Secondly, do you have any idea how much it would cost both in time and materials to install wires under all major roads? And thirdly do you have any idea how much power losses would be involved with this much wiring? I bet for every kWh you put into it you'd barely be able to get a single Wh back.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by stooo ( 2202012 )

          Hmm. No
          Wireless charging may be just OK for a phonr, but has extreme drawbacks for a car.
          Galvanic contact Rulzzzzz.

        • You can patent anything you want. Wireless charging has incredible losses. It's not happening in our lifetimes.

        • 3 problems with wireless charging:

          1) its less efficient, might not be a bvig deal with your phone, but if you're charging a car with a lot of current, that inefficieny make a noticeable dent in your electricity generation.

          2) its very susceptible to location - you have to park right on the charging area, not mostly on it, not near it, not too far forward etc. Go look at a car park and see how many people can't even get between the white lines, or are at an angle. To make wireless charging work, you're expect

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Fortunately it's easy to add chargers to streets because they are already wired up for lighting. In fact the lamp posts are ideal for mounting the sockets on. The main issue is billing. One option is to just add it on to local taxes based on annual mileage that has to be recorded for other reasons anyway.

        In Europe building regulations often require off-road parking for every dwelling, although often only one space and now many people have two cars. In Tokyo you aren't even allowed to buy a car unless you ca

        • more of an issue there is the relative lack of lampposts, if EVs become popular, you'd have to install charger stations between lampposts like parking meters. Starts to get expensive putting all that street furniture out after a while, and that means the local authorities will simply get private companies to do it, who will charge extra to make their profit.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Most of the expense is installing the wiring, the posts are not too bad. Eventually we will just have to get on and do it though, otherwise we will end up with lots of people locked out of cheaper and cleaner cars.

    • I think all these complaints (and they are complaints) would magically evaporate if the cost of removing the CO2 produced by using gasoline was added to it's price.

      Right now, there is no cost associated with polluting. Change that and you'll see how quickly people change their tune.

      • How many trees would you need to plant per mile driven?

        • It does not work by planting trees only.
          When you plant a tree, you initiate carbon capture for a few decades.
          When you burn oil or natural gas, you relase CO2 that has been stored since 500 million years.

          -> Planting trees only defers the problem, and only in the false assumption that there was no tree at this location before.
          -> Planting trees to "offset CO2" is pure greewashing.

      • We have that in Canada, it's called carbon tax.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Cool are you also going to ask the EV folks to pay taxes on all the carbon associated with generating costs for the electricity they use? To be really fair you should tax them for the expected line loss before the meter too

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Yes. This is why carbon taxes are a good idea, and all the gamified versions are not. That way you don't have to have silly arguments like this one.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )
      I agree that a large percentage of the population doesn't have access to overnight chargers, which is basically a necessity for happy EV ownership, but your premise on the cost of a battery not being a large part seems pretty weak.

      In a compact car 5k is 25% of the price, in the average car in the US (38k) 7,500 is 20% of the price.

      these are a huge chunk of the cost of a car.

    • Is the battery a major part of the cost of a new EV?

      Yes.

    • "Is the battery a major part of the cost of a new EV?

      A quick search reveals they are $5000-7500 for a replacement,"

      That's the price for one module, a Model S has 19 of them if I remember correctly.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chill ( 34294 )

        Simply math would then be 19 * $5,000 = $95,000 for the lower value, and 19 * $7,500 = $142,500 for the upper value.

        The price of a basic Model S is $75,000, so that would mean Tesla was selling their premium model at a $25,000 or 21% loss. I'm thinking no.

  • They only need to upgrade the number of sensors and they'll be fine. They need side facing cameras on the front fenders just behind the headlight so that they can better detect forward cross traffic that may be obscured to the camera on the B-pillar. It would make autonomous turns safer. Once they have full self driving only a fool would drive anything else.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 )

      Once they have full self driving only a fool would drive anything else.

      LOL. I'm sure you probably even believe that.

  • Parity with ICE prices still isn't good enough (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @01:08AM (#60292274) Homepage

    It's been going on for awhile, but the average American can't afford the average new car [consumeraffairs.com]. This might sound hard to parse, but it just means the vast majority of new cars are being sold to the top income earners, while the rest of us try to talk the dealer down on a leftover entry-level car from the previous model year, or snag a deal on something from the used lot.

    EVs need to get significantly cheaper before they'll ever replace most of the vehicles on the road, if for no other reason than that most of the vehicles (the average age of a car in the USA is close to 12 years old [usatoday.com]) are owned by folks who simply cannot afford to buy something new. While there's a lot of talk about improvements in battery charge cycles, it still remains to be seen if EVs will truly have the longevity to make it onto those used car lots, or if the prospect of needing a $7.5k+ battery replacement will mean many of them will simply end up scrapped.

    • the vast majority of new cars are being sold to the top income earners

      Businesses, really.

      while the rest of us try to talk the dealer down on a leftover entry-level car from the previous model year

      So they are trying to buy new cars, then, just old stock.

    • Good post.

      I am interested in how the hydrogen fuel cells fit into this. Although less on hydrogen itself, and more alternative fuel cells. I think the subtle advantage is with it's fuel density making energy capacity a non-issue, that removes need for regenerative braking and related electronics which increases cost of battery EVs (both having electric motors). That's one less system that needs maintenance, and could be more amenable to extended life-cycle i.e. used car market. As to why I'm not interested

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sique ( 173459 )
        Regenerative Braking is a builtin feature of an electric motor. Each electric motor generates electric energy as soon as you shortcut it. You don't need additional hardware for that. You just need a way to deal with the currents. Early electric locomotives had large resistor arrays on the roof to dissipate the electric energy as heat. Since the advent of the thyristor in the 1960ies, electric locomotives feed the electric energy from braking back into the wire. Also a fuel cell car would need a way to deal

    • EVs need to get significantly cheaper

      They really don't. You see the average American as you rightfully said still buys a car, and trickle down economics is still a thing.

      Now EVs need to get significantly cheaper if you expect them to replace ICE cars even faster than the average new replacement value of a car. I'll give you that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      A 20% cheaper battery won't even put them on par with other EVs.

      The cheapest Model 3 available here is about £40k. For 30k you can get a similar range Leaf. Obviously the battery is only a fraction of the cost of the car so 20% won't bring parity.

      In fact other battery manufacturers are already 15-20% cheaper than Tesla because they use pouch cells.

      The only down side of pouch cells is that you can't charge them as aggressively, say max 100kW instead of 200kW. For affordable cars that doesn't matt

      • I think this works differently in various price brackets.

        The Model 3 is price competitive with BMW 3 or Audi A4 ICEs. The Leaf is cheaper because it's a slow econobox.

        On the other hand smaller EVs like the Seat Mii is still like £20k, or almost twice as much as the ICE version and even more compared to slightly used ones which is what most people can buy. Here a cheaper battery could make a huge difference.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The Leaf 62 isn't slow, it's actually pretty nippy. Not a performance car I'll grant you but not slow or an econobox by any means.

          The affordable end of the market is really taking off now, e.g. the Leaf 40, MG ZS EV and some models of Zoe are all around £22k. For most people those are ideal, can do most single day trips without charging and for longer trips the charging/driving ratio is very good and it's not worth spending an extra £20k to save a small amount of time.

    • There's no need to get used cars off the road (except the worst of them). Used cars are green in their own way because they're avoiding the need to manufacture a new car and the emissions and pollution involved in that. Let's just turn new cars into electrics that last for 50+ years and declare victory.

      • Any evidence of a battery having a shelf life approaching 50 years?

      • Only about one third of a vehicle's lifetime energy cost comes in production. The average age of a vehicle in the USA is now about 11 years (an all-time high.) Your vehicle has to do an outstanding number of miles before you save energy by not buying another vehicle. I currently drive a 1982 300SD, which gets about 30 MPG freeway in the best case. Described as the most expensive economy car of all time, it represents a best case for an older, full-sized vehicle. Because it's been on the road so long, and ha

  • Lithum-Phosphate's have many great advantages over the Lithium-Cobalt's but historically they're half the energy storage density! They've been used as a cleaner, lighter and smaller replacement for deep-cycle Lead-Acid's in many places. There they have a good energy density advantage.

    I didn't see mention of Tesla overcoming the energy density vs Cobalt issue. Maybe they intend to trade off a big chunk of charge range in some models.

    • My thought also. LiFePO4 is not exactly new, and it's very doubtful that Tesla would get a patent just on the battery chemistry, so I assume there's something else that's new about these batteries. Traditional LiFePO4 cells have some big advantages over other Lithium chemistries (like, you can short-circuit them without them catching fire) but energy density isn't one of them. Their energy density in J/m^3 has always been worse than other Lithium cells, but their energy density in J/kg has always been te
  • LFP (lithium iron phosphate / LiFePO4) cells are the ones that have been used by US hobbyists for years for electric conversion vehicles. They are safer and generally don't catch fire even under extreme conditions. But they aren't cheap, and what is most remarkable, they haven't come down AT ALL in price, they cost the same today as they did 10 years ago: about $1.30 per Ah (ampere-hour), which at 3.2 volts works out to about $400 per kWh. Of course, I'm sure Tesla can get them cheaper, but at 1/4 the pri

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alcari ( 1017246 )

      they haven't come down AT ALL in price, they cost the same today as they did 10 years ago

      The reason "conventional" lithium batteries have become so cheap has very little to do with advancing technology, and almost everything to do with economies of scale and infrastructure.

      Batteries are cheap because demand has gone up. As demand rose, it become economical to build massive factories, where you can basically control the whole process. One huge factory is very plainly cheaper than running a smaller assmebly plant that buys intermediate products, who buy other intermediates, all of whom charge

    • They also don't have the performance (ultra-rapid discharge rates) of the cobalt-based cells, so won't give you that ludicrous instant acceleration that is one of Tesla's main selling points.

      https://thedriven.io/2020/02/26/new-tesla-battery-a-combination-of-dry-cell-and-supercapacitor/

  • ... German car manufacturers have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to electric and autonomous cars and now Tesla is coming to Germany and building a huge factory here to show us how it's done. At least VW got the message but I'm afraid they're too late and they don't really understand IT/Software, like many other German companies.

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