Former Tesla CTO: Electric car batteries should last 15 years

　　On March 29, JB Straubel, who was previously Tesla’s long-term chief technology officer, recently talked about electric vehicles. He believes that an electric car’s battery should last about 15%. year.

　　(JB Straubel)

　　The durability of an EV battery is important because one of the most asked questions when it comes to EVs is "how long will the battery last". For consumers interested in buying an electric vehicle, battery life is the number one concern, in addition to range. How many years will the battery last, and how many 10,000 kilometers can the vehicle run before the battery pack needs to be completely replaced?

　　However, as of now, we don't have enough data to answer this question directly, because EVs haven't been around for long enough, and the previous generation of EVs are still on the road today and haven't reached their end of life.

　　Aside from the defective battery packs, most of the battery packs that were replaced were in EVs with excessive mileage. For example, the media reported a Model X with more than 400,000 miles (640,000 km) that had its battery replaced at about 325,000 miles (520,000 km). However, for most EV owners who use their cars normally, we have to estimate the life of the battery pack based on the degradation of the battery, which in most cases is quite small.

　　Tesla co-founder and former CTO Straubel said in a recent interview that he believes EV batteries should last 15 years, depending on utilization. "It's a subjective thing and depends on what people are aiming for with the car, but I think in most cases it can easily get to 15 years," he said. "I think the battery life is probably going to be with the entire life of the vehicle. Longevity. Personally, I don't think people are likely to put a new battery in an old car."

　　Regarding battery issues, Straubel can be said to be very professional, and he has been in charge of Tesla's battery development until 2019. Since leaving Tesla, the engineer has been keeping a close eye on the end-of-life situation of electric vehicle batteries, which are critical to his new venture, Redwood Materials.

　　Redwood Materials is currently developing new processes for recycling materials, and the company's focus is on electric vehicle batteries. The company also recently announced that they will also start battery cathode and anode material production and will build a battery materials factory in the US with a capacity of up to 100GWh. The longer the battery pack, the better, of course, and one of the main advantages of electric vehicles is that the battery pack, due to the high amount of base metals in it, is still very valuable when the vehicle and battery dies.

　　Straubel's new venture is already working with Ford and Volvo to recycle battery packs when they end up, but that's just the beginning. Now, only tens to hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles enter the end of life every year. And in the future, if we believe Straubel's timeline, that number will rise to millions within 15 years.

　　SES Power believes that Straubel mentioned that the battery of electric vehicles can be used for 15 years is too optimistic, at least in the current stage of lithium battery technology and manufacturing process, such as the drying of electrolyte and so on. Of course, task objects need to be properly used and maintained, and lithium batteries are no exception, which is another key factor. We use high-quality raw materials and batteries from excellent manufacturers, such as 12V100Ah, 24V100Ah, 36V100Ah, 48V100Ah using EVE, CATL, BYD square aluminum lithium iron phosphate batteries, home energy storage 3KW, 5KW systems, rack-mounted energy storage System and other products, after calculation, these products can be used for nearly ten years. The use of electric vehicles is more frequent and more complex, and the application environment is also very different, so we question Straubel's point of view.