From Reuters via Mining.com, April 27:
Iron man Elon Musk places his Tesla battery bets
As Tesla’s profits and prices grabbed headlines last week, a potentially pivotal development for the global car industry flew largely under the radar.
The US electric pioneer disclosed that nearly half of the vehicles it produced in the first quarter were equipped with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries – a cheaper rival to the nickel-and-cobalt-based cells that dominate in the West.
The revelation, eclipsed by the carmaker’s $19 billion revenue and Elon Musk’s Twitter charge, was the first time Tesla had disclosed such specifics about its batteries make-up.
It flashed a strong signal that iron-based cells are finally starting to win global appeal at a time when nickel is blighted by supply concerns due to major producer Russia’s war in Ukraine and cobalt is tainted by reports of dangerous conditions at artisanal mines in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Tesla is not alone in betting that LFP batteries, already popular in China, can make inroads into Western markets.
More than a dozen companies are considering establishing factories for LFP batteries and components in the United States and Europe over the next three years, according to a Reuters review of the electric vehicle (EV) scene and interviews with several players.
“I think lithium iron phosphate has a new life,” said Mujeeb Ijaz, founder of U.S. battery startup Our Next Energy which says it is scouting a U.S. production site. “It has a clear and long-term advantage for the electric vehicle industry.”
Ijaz has worked in the field long enough to see a technology that failed to catch on in America a decade ago gather fresh momentum. He was chief technology officer at Michigan-based A123, an early producer of LFP batteries that went bankrupt in 2012 and was acquired by a Chinese company.
He and other LFP advocates cited the relative abundance and cheaper prices of iron as a key factor beginning to outweigh the drawbacks that have held back the adoption of LFP cells globally – they are bigger and heavier, and generally hold less energy than NCM cells, giving them a shorter range.
There is a mountain to climb, though....
....MUCH MORE
Related:Batteries: ...The Race to Build Europe’s Frst Lithium-Iron-Phosphate Battery Gigafactory
Lithium-Iron, it's all anyone is talking about....
"Tesla in talks with China's EVE for low-cost battery supply deal -sources" TSLA)
Well I guess Tony Stark Elon Musk is now officially Iron Man.
However, if this works, Elon may have found the chemistry for the next generation of Powerwalls.
Also from 2018:"Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries"
This time frame is not too restrictive.
Tesla and their battery partner, Panasonic, have removed a lot of the cobalt (60%) from their battery recipe and are on their way to zero cobalt over the next couple years.
So, more interesting than any time pressure is the potential spur to creativity on the question of alternative chemistries.
From the journal Nature, July 25:...
One more from 2018—apparently a great year for Iron Age types while I kept writing Bronze Age on my checks. ("Dad, what's a check?"):
Twenty Month Payback for Tesla 100-MW Utility Scale Battery Storage System
Elon (and Panasonic) may have just found another multi-billion dollar business.
Going forward the chemistry probably won't be Lithium ion, maybe
molten-salt or iron based, but the fact TSLA can now pitch this kind of
payback probably heralds the beginnings of lithium rush 3.0, or at least
the promotion thereof....
And just so you know how long it can take to go from lab bench to production, this post is from 2008!
Lithium-Ion Batteries for Less
Researchers show a low-cost route to making materials for advanced batteries in electric cars and hybrids.A new way to make advanced lithium-ion battery materials addresses one of their chief remaining problems: cost. Arumugam Manthiram, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, has demonstrated that a microwave-based method for making lithium iron phosphate takes less time and uses lower temperatures than conventional methods, which could translate into lower costs.
Lithium iron phosphate is an alternative to the lithium cobalt oxide used in most lithium-ion batteries in laptop computers . It promises to be much cheaper because it uses iron rather than the much more expensive metal cobalt. Although it stores less energy than some other lithium-ion materials, lithium iron phosphate is safer and can be made in ways that allow the material to deliver large bursts of power, properties that make it particularly useful in hybrid vehicles.
Indeed, lithium iron phosphate has become one of the hottest new battery materials. For example, A123 Systems, a startup based in Watertown, MA, that has developed one form of the material, has raised more than $148 million and commercialized batteries for rechargeable power tools that can outperform conventional plug-in tools....MORE
