• Musk announces Tesla’s plan to equip its Model 3 Sedan vehicles in China later this year with low-cost, long life batteries designed to last a million miles.
• Tesla worked jointly with Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL) of China to develop the batteries.
   

Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has reportedly announced plans to equip Model 3 Sedan of the Tesla fleet in China with a new low-cost battery by the end of the year. Sources say that these batteries have a long life and are designed to last a million miles.

The development of this battery was jointly undertaken by Tesla and Chinese Battery Manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL). According to experts, the new batteries will help the American EV manufacturer sell the vehicles profitably, for more or less the same price than that of a petrol vehicle.

Reliable sources have stated that the new technology introduced will enable batteries to store energy for a longer time period by reducing internal stress through low Cobalt battery chemistry. It is also assumed that this battery technology will be introduced in other Tesla models with time.

Tesla also has plans to speed up its manufacturing process by implementing highly automated battery manufacturing technology that will help reduce labor cost and also help scale operations to tera factories, about 30 times the size of its Gigafactory in Nevada.

Earlier this year, sources reported that Tesla was in advanced talks with CATL over its Cobalt free Lithium Iron phosphate battery technology. According to reliable sources, CATL will now supply Tesla with Nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries. The cathode in these batteries consists of 50% nickel and only 20% cobalt. It is expected that Tesla will use CATL’s low cost method of packaging battery cells to reduce battery weight and lower manufacturing cost.

Tesla currently produces Nickel Cobalt Aluminium (NCA) batteries in partnership with Panasonic at its Giga factory in Nevada. In January, Musk was reported to state that Tesla needs to continue to improve on the cost per kilowatt-hour of its batteries. This pursuit is fundamental and extremely difficult.

Tesla has recorded operating profits for the last three quarters which has seen the company’s share price almost double. Musk has now further announced his intentions to expand the company to further increase sales volume and eventually share price. Musk told investors in January that he wants to scale battery production to crazy levels that people today cannot even fathom. 

Source Credits: https://www.scmp.com/tech/gear/article/3084482/teslas-secret-batteries-aim-rework-maths-electric-cars-and-power-grid