Tesla Researchers Announce a 4 Million-Mile Battery But It’s Only The 3rd Best Cell Chemistry They Discovered

Tesla currently has a battery research partnership with Dr. Jeff Dahn of Dalhousie University in Canada. Jeff Dahn is one of the top researchers in the lithium-ion battery field and his lab has already achieved notable improvements to battery tech such as extending the lifetime of a lithium-ion battery pack to over a million miles.

Tesla initially signed a 5-year partnership with Jeff Dahn and his lab in 2016 and in 2021 the EV maker extended the partnership for another 5 years. With the new deal, Tesla received exclusive rights to breakthroughs coming out of Dahn’s lab until 2026.

In addition to Dahn, in 2021 Tesla also added Dr. Chongyin Yang and Dr. Michael Metzger as Tesla Canada Research chair and Herzberg-Dahn Chair respectively. Dr. Yang has been working on materials and devices for energy conversion and storage for more than a decade.

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Working with Tesla, Dr. Metzger’s research group focuses on developing new methods to study the performance and lifetime of advanced lithium-ion batteries, lithium-metal batteries, and desalination batteries. The goal is to create a fundamental understanding that will help develop new electrode materials and electrolytes for stationary and electric vehicle batteries.

And a year after extending the deal, in March of 2022, Tesla began to reap the fruits of the new partnership with Dahn’s lab announcing new battery chemistry that can last 100 years. In a paper titled “Li[Ni0.5Mn0.3Co0.2]O2 as a Superior Alternative to LiFePO4 for Long-Lived Low Voltage Li-Ion Cells” Dr. Metzger and Dr. Dahn detail a new nickel-based battery with superior life cycle.

Last year's paper wrote…

“Single crystal Li[Ni0.5Mn0.3Co0.2]O2//graphite (NMC532) pouch cells with only sufficient graphite for operation to 3.80 V (rather than ≥4.2 V) were cycled with charging to either 3.65 V or 3.80 V to facilitate comparison with LiFePO4//graphite (LFP) pouch cells on the grounds of similar maximum charging potential and similar negative electrode utilization. The NMC532 cells, when constructed with only sufficient graphite to be charged to 3.80 V, have an energy density that exceeds that of the LFP cells and a cycle-life that greatly exceeds that of the LFP cells at 40 °C, 55 °C, and 70 °C.”

In other words, the new nickel-based cell maintains the superior energy density of nickel-based batteries however, at the same time can last significantly longer than lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are known for their long life cycle but, inferior energy density.

This means the new cell is the best of both worlds with a long life cycle while at the same time maintaining the higher energy density of nickel-based chemistry.

Continuing Tesla’s researchers' note…

“NMC cells, particularly those balanced and charged to 3.8 V, show better coulombic efficiency, less capacity fade, and higher energy density compared to LFP cells and are projected to yield lifetimes approaching a century at 25 °C”

With a 100-year capacity, a battery pack will be functioning long after the vehicle has degraded. This breakthrough although in its infancy and with limitations in operating voltage and temperature can, however, in the long run, make battery packs basically last for a lifetime.

Although exciting, this was last year, and in the months since publishing the above paper researchers at Jeff Dahn’s lab have been hard at work trying to fundamentally improve batteries in all aspects.

This year, the Dahn research group has already made two major breakthroughs that fundamentally improved battery cells. In the first of these improvements, the research group identified an inactive tape used to hold together components of a battery as a reason why batteries discharge on their own while sitting idle.

Second, researchers from the Dahn group also found that adding calcium to Sodium-ion batteries makes them stable enough to produce in a regular factory environment, eliminating the need for dry rooms which adds massive cost.

Both these breakthroughs have been verified and are already in the initial stages of being implemented to improve batteries around the world.

However, if these weren’t enough, Herzberg-Dahn Chair Dr. Michael Metzger in a new interview with Electric Autonomy has shed light on additional breakthroughs Jeff Dahn’s research group has achieved in partnership with Tesla.

The first breakthrough Dr. Metzger revealed is that the nickel-based battery initially announced as the million-mile battery in 2019, then upgraded to the 100-year battery mentioned above in a March 2022 paper, has now reached 19,500 cycles.

In other words, one cycle is considered about 186 miles so 19,500 cycles come out to around a 3.7 million mile battery. Although impressive, Dr. Metzger says that the testing is ongoing and the battery not only has a chance of reaching 4 million miles but, that with every cycle the cell's coulombic efficiency is improving.

Coulombic efficiency is the ratio between the charge and discharge cycle and measures the current loss between charging and discharging a cell.

One would assume, that an almost 4 million-mile battery that keeps getting more efficient with use would be the crowning achievement of the Dahn lab however, according to Dr. Metzger there are an additional 3 promising batteries that the Dahn group has developed in partnership with Tesla.

And Dr. Metzger says he prefers at least 2 of the battery prototypes more than the “4 million mile battery.” According to Dr. Metzger, the most promising battery currently being developed by the lab is a high-energy-dense battery that uses silicon carbide rather than graphite as the anode.

This cell although highly energy-dense nonetheless lacks the life cycle of the 4 million mile NMC battery and another lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cell that the research team is currently working on. According to Dr. Metzger, the LPF battery, ahead of the 4 million mile battery, is the second-best cell to come out of the research lab.

Dr. Metzger has not gone into detail about when these new batteries will go into mass production or the steps the research group is taking to keep the benefits of the battery while at the same time improving their shortcomings.

However, we will be sure to keep you posted when we learn more about the work Dahn’s research group is doing and the practical benefits that come with Tesla vehicles. Until then, make sure to visit our site torquenews.com/Tesla regularly for the latest updates.

So what do you think? Excited that Tesla’s partnership with Dahn’s lab is achieving several breakthroughs? Also, do you think there is any practical reason for a 4 million-mile battery? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Image: Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.

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Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and The evolution of the EV space on a daily basis for several years. He covers everything about Tesla from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.