Elon Musk Teases Batteries With 50% Higher Capacity In Only A Few Years

Ahead of Tesla’s Battery Day event on Sept. 22, CEO Elon Musk on Monday took to Twitter – as he is so fond of doing – with a hint of the future.

Responding to another tweet about the company’s rumored electric airplane, Musk said that batteries with considerably higher capacity, 400-watt hours per kilogram (wh/kg), may be only three or four years away.

The Tesla Model 3 currently boasts a 260 wh/kg battery, meaning the batteries being teased by Musk would have nearly 50% more capacity. The greater the battery capacity, the further an electric car will be able to travel on a single charge, a major point of contention for the mainstream viability of electric cars.

Musk has previously stated that this capacity level could make electric airplanes a viability, as mentioned in the replied tweet.

Musk suggested that these sorts of batteries could be ready for mass production within the same timeframe, not just achievable in one-off scenarios in lab settings.

Tesla has released a promotional image teasing its upcoming Battery Day event. Notably, the background of the image features a dense series of dots, which may have bearing on a breakthrough in battery capacity.

Speaking with Reuters, South Korean battery expert Park Chul-wan suggested that the image resembles a “silicon nanowire anode.” This technology utilizes extremely small wires to greatly increase the surface area for a battery’s electrodes and could be how Tesla plans to achieve greater capacity, as well as battery life.