Elon Musk: Our lithium batteries get cobalt to almost nothing

According to Bloomberg News, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a conference call that Tesla has mastered technology to reduce amount of cobalt metal in lithium-ion batteries. The original quote: We think we can get cobalt to almost nothing. Tesla Model 3 currently is under mass production, and it is powered by lithium-ion battery pack.

What kind of information does Musk's statement convey?

At present, cobalt is an important metal for the production of lithium ion batteries, and mainly used for positive electrode materials of batteries, such as lithium cobaltate, lithium-nickel cobalt manganese oxide (NCM) and the like. According to estimates by eCobalt Solutions, a manufacturer of cobalt salts for batteries, by 2020, 75% of lithium batteries will use cobalt because cobalt has the effect of increasing the battery life. However, about half of the world's cobalt comes from the war in Zaire (Republic of the Congo). Many people are worried about the stability of cobalt supply. Coupled with the development of pure electric vehicles in various countries, the demand for cobalt has soared. The price of cobalt has the trend of multiplication. Therefore, reducing the amount of cobalt in a lithium ion battery has very practical significance.

So how the amount of cobalt reduced? The general technical solution is to increase the amount of nickel used. The main role of nickel is to increase the energy density of the battery. This research direction is called high-nickel ternary materials (such as 622/811, etc., these three numbers represent the ratio of nickel-cobalt-manganese). However, an increase in amount of nickel causes a decrease in the structural stability of the corresponding electrode material, resulting in a significant decrease in battery cycle life and safety. In addition, different material systems need to match different formulations of electrolytes. Because of the high impurity content of the high-nickel ternary surface, a more optimized electrolyte formulation needed, which is also a difficult point of research and development.

From Musk's point of view, high-nickel ternary is Tesla's future lithium-ion battery solution. It reported that lithium-ion battery for Tesla is Japan's Matsushita Co., Ltd., one of few companies in the world to master high-nickel ternary mass production technology, using nickel-cobalt lithium aluminate (NCA), the ratio is 8: 1.5:0.5. Tesla's previous disclosure to shareholders said that its lithium-ion battery has the highest energy density in the industry and solves thermal stability problem after high nickel.

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