What Could Happen If Batteries Outlasted the EVs They Power?

Electric cars are without a doubt the vehicles of the future. It has become clear just how much of a negative impact fossil fuels have on the environment, and phasing out internal combustion engines is one of the first steps towards achieving a green future. Not only do they run on clean energy, but they have zero emissions, something traditional vehicles can’t claim. One area both kinds of vehicles remain tied is in the range: most modern vehicles, whether electric or traditional, have an average maximum range of 200,000 miles.

That may change soon, however, if a flurry of recent reports is to be believed. In the past couple of months, there have been increasing talks of a ‘million-mile battery,’ a battery pack that would hypothetically have enough juice to run for a million miles. Back in May, a top executive at General Motors said that the company was “almost there” on the development of a million-mile battery. And when Tesla released its 2019 Impact Report in June, it seemed to reinforce rumors that it would soon roll out a million-mile battery by emphasizing the environmental advantages of a “future Tesla vehicle with a million-mile battery.”

Later in July, Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology, which makes electric car batteries for Tesla and Volkswagen, announced that it was ready to produce batteries that could last 1.24 million miles. According to several experts, a million-mile battery would likely outlast whatever vehicle it was designed for and dramatically impact both second-use markets and battery recycling.

“What they’re talking about with million-mile batteries is not so much that an average consumer would put a million miles on the clock, but that you’d potentially be able to use the battery multiple times, either in the vehicular energy storage or grid-connected stuff,” says Simon Lambert, a co-lead investigator at the Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries project at the Faraday Institution in the UK. So, no, you won’t be able to literally drive your EV for a million miles. The battery pack will likely be used to power either another vehicle after yours or be used as a stationary power storage solution.

However, lithium-ion batteries usually deteriorate over time due to the cycle of charging and discharging, and simple aging. This affects both storage capacity and power capability which means over time, the battery will lose some of its storage capacity as well as the speed with which it discharges power. “The rate at which those things come down really affects the performance of the battery in terms of second life,” says Lambert. Million-mile batteries would most likely be cycled through a series of less demanding applications over time, he says, maybe starting in a high-performance sports car before downgrading to an electric cab and finally being used for grid energy storage or backup power systems.

All these are exciting possibilities that EV companies like Fisker Inc. (NYSE: SPAQ) may be actively pursuing for implementation in the coming years.

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