Is a 2 Million Mile Tesla Batterry Viable?

Post date: 07-Jul-2020 15:14:48

Recently Elon Musk and Tesla have been hinting towards their new upcoming 1 million mile battery, this news is a game-changer in the EV community.

Not only will Tesla’s batteries last longer, but they will also be more energy-dense, costs less to produce, and be manufactured using methods far superior to what they are doing today.

At the moment, the Tesla community feels like they have a pretty good concept for what is to come during Tesla’s battery and powertrain investor Day. The first part scheduled to be via a webcast, and part two, perhaps a few months later.

I want to clarify to you all today that Elon Musk is likely to slack his new 1 million mile battery claims to the Tesla motors community. Elon has hinted that a million-mile battery would be something like a four thousand charge cycle life.

In his view, and Tesla’s view, this means that it would require a vehicle like a Model 3 to consist of a 50-kilowatt-hour battery pack, have a five-mile per kilowatt-hour efficiency in the future, and be capable of four thousand charge and discharge cycles.

According to sources like from Jeff Dahn‘s team, they were showing promising signs of a Tesla battery pack and battery cells being able to withstand roughly 6,000 charge cycles with only about 10% battery life degradation.

The reason why this is so fascinating and important for Tesla’s batteries to withstand these levels of wear and tear is that it perfectly aligns with Tesla’s goals of self-driving Robo taxis.

If Tesla or yourself wants Robo taxis to exist in the future, one of the most important key variables is a long-lasting battery.

Robo taxis in specific geographies, say close to the freeway, driving at high speeds for long periods, may easily average over 500 miles of usage per day.

If we assume one of Tesla’s new cyber trucks produced in a couple of years from now has one of their new battery packs in it, we could assume a battery pack of 125-kilowatt hours, four miles traveled per kilowatt-hour, and this equals 500 miles of range.

Again, these are just estimates. So if the cyber truck’s new battery has a battery pack rated for 5000 charge cycles, which is in line with Jeff Dahn’s claims for the new battery packs, this warrants a 2.5 million mile battery pack with about 10% battery life degradation if their claims are valid.

To put this in perspective, this is about ten times better than your average vehicle with an internal combustion engine or a five-fold improvement over today’s Tesla battery packs.

If we gave the cyber truck a battery pack of say 75-kilowatt hours, four miles traveled per kilowatt-hour of efficiency. In five thousand charge cycles the battery can now last about 1.5 million miles based on 10 percent battery degradation using Tesla’s new battery cell chemistry’s

I’m predicting based on future battery pack sizes that in the future, Tesla may have battery packs capable of lasting at least over 1 million miles of usage, and perhaps even more than 3 million miles in beyond.

It all comes down to how efficient the vehicle can operate and how to reduce the number of charge cycles during its life.

And of course, temperature conditions such as too hot or too cold and other external factors do have a long-term effect, but that is out of our control for the most part.

In the long run, this reduces the financial costs of operating a Tesla Robo taxi over time, and Tesla and Jeff Dahn’s team is well aware of this concept has Tesla’s end goal is to be an autonomous ride-sharing behemoth in the future.

You may think that a Tesla Robo taxi operating with well over 1 million miles of miles sounds ridiculous in terms of lifetime usage. A Robo taxi made in 2021 for and lasting over ten years seems unnecessary due to other parts of the vehicle becoming too old and outdated.

Some of the parts in Robo Taxi that may wear out would be the computer systems, cameras, and internal screen interfaces for the ride-sharing customers.

This is why I think it is likely that Tesla may add these old batteries to their energy business battery packs and save themselves a considerable amount of money.

Tesla would only do this after its Robo taxis wear out. Ant, that is because there will have been little degradation to the majority of Tesla’s battery packs, assuming most of the ride-sharing vehicles are operating in a friendly climate.

On top of this news, what I find interesting with Tesla’s new batteries is that with them being lighter and longer-lasting, Tesla will be in control of how long it may want its vehicles to last.

Or Tesla could balance out its potential geographical ride-sharing monopolies in the future with vehicles like Model 3’s, Model Y, and cyber trucks with multiple variants of longer-lasting batteries.

What do I mean by this? What I mean is that Tesla will have the luxury of placing vehicles with higher mileage in longer-lasting batteries in places like near freeways where typically cars will drive more on average on any given day.

All the while, Tesla could still easily guarantee the vehicle to a 10-year lifespan, regardless of how many miles it is likely to drive each day during those years.

On the other hand, Tesla could place Robo taxis with the new battery packs, but smaller kilowatt-hour storage in more urban streets where the average speed and miles traveled per day would be far less.

A strategy such as this would allow for a more efficient ecosystem of ride-hailing for Tesla. In the long term, if this fleet organization in the right way, this would allow Tesla’s Robo taxi fleet to be even more profitable and longer-lasting.

It’s these subtle details that Tesla focuses on, such as reducing weight and batteries and making them more redundant that is going to set them apart from the rest of their competition.

If Tesla’s new battery specifications hold up, it’s difficult to see a reason for a battery that would require over 5,000 charges and discharge cycles.

The only other areas that need improvement on the battery front, in my opinion, after charge cycles are better specific energy density, lower manufacturing costs, faster charge and discharge rates, and yes to see Tesla getting into the mining business.