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Tesla - Manganese Battery
Tesla is working on a 4680 battery chemistry in Texas right now. This is a high Nickel cell battery. Back in 2022, Elon Musk said in regard to Manganese:
Manganese is an alternative to iron and phosphorous for scaling cathode production to several TWh/year. Manganese also requires less lithium, and it operates at a higher voltage.
Lithium-Iron-Phosphate is a battery chemistry. There is a theory about using Manganese in this particular type of battery. Tesla has made progress in nickel based cathodes. Manganese as an alternative to iron and phosphate would make manganese the primary cathode in this new battery chemistry.
In this particular video, Warren used ChatGPT and Bard to conglomerate information about this new battery chemistry and stumbled on what is referred to as lithium-rich manganese based cathode materials. This is high working capacity and has high voltage.
Manganese would be used with some nickel and cobalt, most likely. There would be less nickel and cobalt in this new type of battery. There are issues trying to get manganese batteries to work due to how oxygen works with the cathode, and this limits the lifetime capacity of the battery - the cycle life.
Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries can go through thousands of cycles without too much battery degradation.
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Will This Be Tesla's Next Battery?
Manganese batteries lose battery capacity faster right now, and researchers are trying to make them last longer. You want a 2,000 cycle minimum. There are techniques that are reducing the degradation, but they aren't there yet. In my opinion, it needs to get close to the degradation of LFP batteries in order to be viable and considered an alternative.
Elon Musk isn't focused on developing a battery that has higher Energy density for long range vehicles. His goal is to deliver a battery that costs less but still performs the same. The demand for lithium and nickel is high, and the demand for manganese is not very high. Getting a manganese battery going will help reduce the costs of batteries.
Having a lower cost battery with a high battery life that is better than an LFP battery is the goal. This battery could be any form factor, either 2170, 4680, or a prismatic form, but you never know what is going to happen with Tesla - they are pretty adaptable.
Battery research is going to continue and may never stop. If Tesla can get the cost of batteries down another few thousand dollars and beat LFP batteries in cycle life, then a manganese battery chemistry makes a ton of sense.
What do you think about a manganese battery chemistry?
For more information, see this video from Warren Redlich:
In Related News: Production Beta View of Tesla's Cybertruck
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Jeremy Johnson is a Tesla investor and supporter. He first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, he's become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla he can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies. Jeremy covers Tesla developments at Torque News. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow his Tesla news coverage on Torque News.
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