On March 22, Tesla CEO Musk opened in the Berlin Gigafactory in Germany, on the same day Musk said that he expects that the battery production in the electric vehicle market will face "challenges" next year, in addition to the factor of chip shortage, the battery will become a "limiting factor" hindering Tesla's development in the next two to three years
Musk once again talked about Tesla's development in the field of batteries, Musk was asked about graphene batteries in his speech, Musk said that he was skeptical about the complexity of manufacturing graphene, while pointing out that Tesla is making batteries with more materials, and in the future, Tesla will focus on nickel-based chemicals for long-endurance and iron phosphate for short-endurance cars!
But then Musk also briefly commented on the manganese-based material: "I think manganese batteries have potential! ”
For manganese batteries, Tesla has been exploring the use of more manganese in batteries, and at the Tesla Battery Conference in 2020, Tesla said that as a temporary step, Tesla will plan to use nickel manganese ~
Musk revealed to the outside world: "Tesla sees the potential of manganese-based in battery chemistry, and it is relatively simple to do the positive electrode with two-thirds of nickel and one-third of manganese, which will allow us to increase battery capacity by more than 50% in the case of the same amount of nickel."
Research groups in the industry have published papers on high-manganese batteries, which mention that they believe that the energy density of high-manganese batteries may be higher than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the price may be more than that of high-nickel batteries
Simple understanding, Musk's heart of the "manganese battery", may be a substitute for lithium iron phosphate batteries, it is worth mentioning that GF Securities once pointed out in the research report that battery materials are expected to become the growth point of the future demand of the manganese industry, lithium manganese oxide batteries have the potential to replace lead-acid batteries, the future cathode material may generally use manganese elements to pull the demand for manganese elements!
According to the data, compared with the lithium iron phosphate battery used on the market, lithium manganese oxide has the advantage of lower battery cost, it is at the lowest end of the cost of lithium batteries, can effectively control the cost of the battery, and has a very good performance in fast charging performance!
However, the shortcomings of lithium manganese oxide batteries are also obvious, such as short cycle life, unstable material itself, poor high temperature, fast attenuation and so on
With the soaring price of lithium, nickel and other battery raw materials in recent years, the cost of power batteries continues to rise, this year's major mainstream electric vehicle brands have raised prices many times, manganese battery cost is low, if you can develop successfully as soon as possible, truly realize commercial use, which will be a good news for consumers