The Future (of EVs) Is Next Year

“At the Tesla Autonomy Event in April, Elon Musk said the Disruptors of Detroit were working on a new battery pack that would last a cool million miles, and said it would be available next year. Now Tesla battery research partner Jeff Dahn and his team have released a paper in which they describe this million-mile battery cell.”
 
See Tesla battery experts describe million-mile cell in new paperA lot of developments of lithium storage cells have been made in the last few years. It’s obvious to many of us that batteries are a key element of managing the cost and performance of electric vehicles. Well, the usual story is that such developments will move from the lab to the factory in a few years. Apparently, Tesla has been successful in moving stuff through the laboratory phase in the past few years and predicts next year will be the year that we can all forget about expensive and unreliable batteries for our EVs. The costs and storage capabilities of the new technology is remarkable: an order of magnitude more charge-discharge cycles, tolerance for deep discharges and full charges, and good performance over a wide range of temperatures. What more could one want?