- by Montgomery Miller
- January 12th, 2020
Why a Million-Mile Battery is Big News From Tesla
A September 2019 article in Forbes details progress by Tesla’s battery guru, on new battery chemistries that will allow for a cell to have a lifetime of 6,000 cycles. For an EV like a Tesla, which requires a large block of cells, this translates, essentially, into a “million-mile battery.” Putting aside, for the moment, the practical issues of physical wear on a vehicle's moving parts and interior components, this is very big news for Tesla drivers and EV fans worldwide.
These exciting battery developments not-withstanding, the Associated Press headline on January 3, 2020 reads: Tesla stock hits record as 2019 sales rise more than 50%.
Just let that sink in for a minute. Sales of Tesla vehicles rose 50% in 2019. By any standard, that is a remarkable accomplishment, one that has catapulted Tesla stock prices making Tesla the most valuable US automaker in history. The stock has more than doubled in value since closing at $178.97 on June 3 of last year, its 12-month low point. The company expects to sell 500,000 units in 2020.
Add to this news the recent announcement by Tesla that they’ve already secured 200,000 pre-orders for the new Cybertruck, Tesla’s futuristic, James Bond inspired electric pickup truck. It would be hard to look at 2019 as anything but an exciting year for Tesla enthusiasts.
Getting back to the battery advances, it’s important to note that storage capacity and improved charge-to-discharge ratios offer benefits far beyond the Tesla vehicle market. On the road, a million-mile battery means the battery may be capable of outlasting the vehicle itself which means you may eventually be able to transfer your old battery into a new vehicle. According to Forbes, the current battery performs best on a 20-80% discharge cycle. With the new advances, the same pack will allow for a 0-100% discharge cycle, or 66% more range from the same pack.
However, off the road, the implications are significant. EVs typically charge up at night, when they are least active and energy prices are lowest. As more EVs hit the road with Tesla leading the way, daytime charging will become more common, especially with the integration of EVs into large fleets. Large capacity grid storage may make it possible to reduce the cost of energy during daytime hours as EV charging begins to soak up more kilowatt-hours. Telsa, in it’s partnership with Panasonic, is leading the industry-wide effort to combine improvements in energy storage capacity with manufacturing efficiencies.
In May of 2019, CNBC went inside Tesla’s Gigafactory outside of Reno, Nevada. The factory, 30% complete at the time, will eventually have the largest footprint of any building in the world. Once completed it will be the model for as many as a dozen Gigafactories Musk hopes to build around the world.
In a November 2019 call with Wall Street analysts, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk expressed optimism that the company’s solar and energy storage business growth would eventually exceed it’s electric vehicle sales. If you’re a Tesla enthusiast this is music to your ears because improvements in storage capacity combined with a substantial expansion of battery storage production is likely to result in better performing, cheaper batteries.
If you’ve ever seen the Tesla battery pack separate from a vehicle, it is truly a marvel to behold. Weighing in at 1,200lbs, it’s size alone is quite impressive. But the battery pack also provides all Tesla models with a very low center of gravity, substantially reducing the risk of a rollover. This has helped to make the Tesla Model X the first SUV in the world to receive a perfect safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
In the end, the Tesla battery is as much a symbol of the extraordinary technological changes that are taking place all around us as it is an object of functional importance. Who knew?
You’ll find more information on Tesla at these source links:
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-x-perfect-safety-crash-test-rating-2019-2
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/03/we-went-inside-teslas-gigafactory-heres-what-it-looked-like.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/14/teslas-musk-says-solar-energy-storage-to-grow-faster-than-cars.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/tesla-2019-sales-hit-goals-rise-50-previous-68048410
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-is-now-the-most-valuable-u-s-car-maker-of-all-time-11578427858
A September 2019 article in Forbes details progress by Tesla’s battery guru, on new battery chemistries that will allow for a cell to have a lifetime of 6,000 cycles. For an EV like a Tesla, which requires a large block of cells, this translates, essentially, into a “million-mile battery.” Putting aside, for the moment, the practical issues of physical wear on a vehicle's moving parts and interior components, this is very big news for Tesla drivers and EV fans worldwide.
These exciting battery developments not-withstanding, the Associated Press headline on January 3, 2020 reads: Tesla stock hits record as 2019 sales rise more than 50%.
Just let that sink in for a minute. Sales of Tesla vehicles rose 50% in 2019. By any standard, that is a remarkable accomplishment, one that has catapulted Tesla stock prices making Tesla the most valuable US automaker in history. The stock has more than doubled in value since closing at $178.97 on June 3 of last year, its 12-month low point. The company expects to sell 500,000 units in 2020.
Add to this news the recent announcement by Tesla that they’ve already secured 200,000 pre-orders for the new Cybertruck, Tesla’s futuristic, James Bond inspired electric pickup truck. It would be hard to look at 2019 as anything but an exciting year for Tesla enthusiasts.
Getting back to the battery advances, it’s important to note that storage capacity and improved charge-to-discharge ratios offer benefits far beyond the Tesla vehicle market. On the road, a million-mile battery means the battery may be capable of outlasting the vehicle itself which means you may eventually be able to transfer your old battery into a new vehicle. According to Forbes, the current battery performs best on a 20-80% discharge cycle. With the new advances, the same pack will allow for a 0-100% discharge cycle, or 66% more range from the same pack.
However, off the road, the implications are significant. EVs typically charge up at night, when they are least active and energy prices are lowest. As more EVs hit the road with Tesla leading the way, daytime charging will become more common, especially with the integration of EVs into large fleets. Large capacity grid storage may make it possible to reduce the cost of energy during daytime hours as EV charging begins to soak up more kilowatt-hours. Telsa, in it’s partnership with Panasonic, is leading the industry-wide effort to combine improvements in energy storage capacity with manufacturing efficiencies.
In May of 2019, CNBC went inside Tesla’s Gigafactory outside of Reno, Nevada. The factory, 30% complete at the time, will eventually have the largest footprint of any building in the world. Once completed it will be the model for as many as a dozen Gigafactories Musk hopes to build around the world.
In a November 2019 call with Wall Street analysts, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk expressed optimism that the company’s solar and energy storage business growth would eventually exceed it’s electric vehicle sales. If you’re a Tesla enthusiast this is music to your ears because improvements in storage capacity combined with a substantial expansion of battery storage production is likely to result in better performing, cheaper batteries.
If you’ve ever seen the Tesla battery pack separate from a vehicle, it is truly a marvel to behold. Weighing in at 1,200lbs, it’s size alone is quite impressive. But the battery pack also provides all Tesla models with a very low center of gravity, substantially reducing the risk of a rollover. This has helped to make the Tesla Model X the first SUV in the world to receive a perfect safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
In the end, the Tesla battery is as much a symbol of the extraordinary technological changes that are taking place all around us as it is an object of functional importance. Who knew?
You’ll find more information on Tesla at these source links:
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-x-perfect-safety-crash-test-rating-2019-2
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/03/we-went-inside-teslas-gigafactory-heres-what-it-looked-like.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/14/teslas-musk-says-solar-energy-storage-to-grow-faster-than-cars.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/tesla-2019-sales-hit-goals-rise-50-previous-68048410
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-is-now-the-most-valuable-u-s-car-maker-of-all-time-11578427858
About the Author
Montgomery “Monty” Miller is a writer and founder of Austin based GlobalSpeed AdGroup, a full service creative advertising agency. His father, a San Antonio native, was a film and television writer with a long career beginning in the 1950s “Golden Age of Television.” In the mid-90s Monty worked in Synergy Marketing for The Walt Disney Company and prior to moving to Austin in 2015 he served as Vice President of Marketing with Flight Sciences International, a consulting firm specializing in fuel conservation planning for airlines worldwide.
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