New Tesla Patent Reveals Company's Desire For Cheaper And Longer-Lasting EV Battery

Electric vehicle maker Tesla has been working on developing a better battery for electric vehicles. The company partnered with a research team earlier this year to further its objective. A new patent filed the electric vehicle company reveals it wants to work on new chemistry that would allow it to produce a more affordable, better, and longer-lasting battery.

Tesla’s battery research partner Jeff Dahn and his staff at Dalhousie University revealed earlier this year the impressive output of tests it conducted on a new battery cell that for more than a million miles when in an electric vehicle. The new battery is a Li-Ion cell with the next generation single crystal NMC cathode and a revolutionary electrolyte. Since then, the electric vehicle maker has been submitting patents in the US and other regions for new battery chemistry.

Tesla, though its subsidiary Tesla Motors Canada, filed an international patent dubbed as Dioxazolones and nitrile sulfates as additives to the electrolyte to be used in lithium-ion battery cells. The patent reveals that these two new additive mixtures in an electrolyte solvent can be utilized with NMC battery chemistry or lithium nickel manganese cobalt compounds. These are generally used by most automakers in electric vehicles, but not Tesla.

The electric vehicle giant used the technology on its stationary energy systems, according to Teslarati. However, for the battery cells of its batteries, it uses NCA. The patent submitted by the company’s battery research group states that the technology would be useful to both electric vehicles and grid-storage.

“ This disclosure covers novel battery systems with fewer operative, electrolyte additives that may be used in different energy storage applications, for example, in vehicle and grid-storage. More specifically, this disclosure includes additive electrolyte systems that enhance performance and lifetime of lithium-ion batteries, while reducing costs from other systems that rely on more or other additives.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk earlier said that the company built Tesla Model 3 to last as long as a commercial million miles truck last. Battery modules usually last between 300,000 miles and 500,000 miles. The Tesla CEO also said that the new battery coming up next year would last a million miles.