A few days ago, at the groundbreaking ceremony of Tesla's Berlin Gigafactory, Musk said that Tesla is currently developing more materials to make batteries, and currently sees the chemical potential of manganese-based cathode batteries.
As early as Tesla Battery Day in 2020, Musk first proposed manganese batteries, saying that "it is relatively simple to do cathodes with two-thirds of nickel and one-third of manganese, which will allow us to generate more than 50% more battery capacity in the case of the same amount of nickel." In January, Musk tweeted that "manganese can replace iron and phosphorus," and in his opinion, "manganese needs less lithium because it can make it work at higher voltages."
At present, the lithium-ion batteries used in the field of new energy vehicles are mainly lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium batteries. As a leader in the field of new energy vehicles, Tesla currently uses nickel-based chemicals in its long-life vehicles and lithium iron phosphate batteries in standard endurance vehicles. At the same time, Tesla has been studying the field of power batteries for many years, trying different materials. Musk has said that the biggest limitation to Tesla's development in the next 2-3 years lies in the power battery.
Recently, the factors of continuous sharp rise in power battery raw materials have led to dozens of domestic new energy vehicle companies having to raise prices.
Taking lithium carbonate, the main material in power batteries, as an example, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in 2021 increased by an average monthly increase of about 22,000 yuan / ton last month. The fastest month of growth was December 2021, with an increase of 71,000 yuan / ton. It should be known that the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in early 2021 is only 50,000 yuan / ton! As of March 2 this year, the average price of the latest battery-grade lithium carbonate has risen to 502,900 yuan / ton.
At the same time, the price of cobalt has also risen from less than 300,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of 2021 to 500,000 yuan / ton now (March 2). There are also power batteries to use the separator, positive and negative electrode materials, electrolyte and other battery-related raw materials have different ranges of price increases, the increase is basically more than 100%!
As of March 25, the domestic Shanghai nickel futures hit a price of 281,250 yuan / ton in the night of March 24, a record high, rising by 200% in two years, which also proved its strong demand.
According to foreign media Outlet, Tesla is not the only company researching the use of manganese for batteries. Many research groups have published studies on the use of manganese-based cathodes to increase energy density and reduce costs. Volkswagen has intensified its bet on high-manganese batteries, and on March 23, Volkswagen and companies related to power battery raw materials reached a strategic cooperation to cope with the rise in power battery raw materials.
Recently, Tesla has used manganese in some battery chemicals, but it is not the main ingredient. Tesla has used nickel-manganese cobalt (NMC) in the energy storage system Powerwall, and many manganese are used in nickel-manganese cobalt.