Tesla unveiled plans on Tuesday to develop a “Tabless” battery that could improve an electric car’s range and power. Tesla company CEO Elon Musk predicts this will help to dramatically reduce costs. This will allow the company to sell electric vehicles for the same price as gasoline-powered ones. These new batteries will be in-house produce of Tesla company.
The company believes that the new battery will lower Tesla’s cost per kilowatt-hour. Experts believe that lowering these costs will allow Tesla to dramatically lower the price of its cars. This will make them far more accessible. The news of the new battery was announced during the company’s much-hyped “Battery Day” event in Palo Alto, California.
The Tabless cells are called 4860 cells
These cells will give the company’s EV batteries five times more energy capacity, make them six times more powerful, and enable a 16 percent range increase for Tesla’s vehicles.
Musk reported that the company achieved this breakthrough by removing the tab, a part of the battery that forms a connection between the cell and what it is powering.
“You actually have a shorter path length for the electron to travel in a large tabless cell than you have in the smaller cell with tabs,” Musk added. “So even though the cell is bigger, it actually has more power”.
In addition to providing more energy and power, the new cells will also result in a 14% cost reduction. Tesla reports that its new cell manufacturing system is “close to working” at the pilot plant level.
During the event, Drew Baglino, Tesla’s vice president for powertrain and energy said that Tesla’s engineers “laser patterned” the existing foils in the cell to create a “shingled spiral” that results in a shorter electrical path length of 50 mm, versus the existing 250 mm length in the current cells.
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