Why Tesla spent $235 Million on Maxwell

Electric cars have a battery problem, it's not new, and it's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but people still want more range. The longest range Tesla's can get around 370 miles of range, but most gas cars can do that in their sleep. So there's two main ways to fix this. Either put a bigger battery in the car, which is expensive, takes up more room, and makes the car heavier, in turn making it less efficient. Or you can just make the battery more energy dense. Pack more energy in to the same amount of space, and you'll improve range. And this is exactly what Tesla is trying to do.

If you've been following Tesla news, you may have seen their shares drop all the way down to about $200 which isn't great, but you may have also heard that they finally completed their deal to acquire Maxwell technologies, an industry leader in supercapacitors. Some may think that Tesla plans to use these in their cars somehow, but more likely it was to acquire their dry electrode battery technology. This is a big effort to improve the energy density of their batteries, and here is how it might work.

First off we need to understand how existing lithium ion batteries work before we talk about how Maxwell is changing it up.

If we look at a diagram of a battery, there's an anode, a cathode, and a porous separator in between the two. The anode has a negative charge, while the cathode has a positive charge. When power is pushed through the battery, it causes lithium ions with a positive charge to move from the cathode to the anode, and reacting with electrons from that power source to charge up the battery. Then when a load is applied to the battery, say a motor or a light, it causes electrons to be pulled away from the anode, then flow through that load to power it.

The porous separator in the middle just makes sure that only electrons and lithium ions can pass through it, so the chemicals in either side of the battery don’t react. That’s why batteries typically swell or explode when they are punctured, that separator is damaged causing a big chemical reaction.

That all sounds a bit confusing, so after you’re done watching I’d encourage you to look up some videos on how lithium ion batteries work, the technology is really cool and there are lots of people that will be able to explain it in much more detail than I just did.

So when these batteries are being manufactured, a slurry mixture is created and coated on copper and aluminum metals to form the anode and cathode. The metals then pass through some sort of oven so the mixture can dry before being assembled in to the battery. But there’s a problem with this slurry mixture, it's got solvent in it, which is usually very toxic. This solvent is removed during the drying phase, so being able to eliminate it completely would be a huge advantage. And this is what Maxwell is trying to do.

Instead of using a slurry to coat on the anode and cathode, they can do this with only dry materials. This eliminates a lot of unnecessary fillers that make up that slurry, and might be left behind when it's completely dried out. Maxwell claims this can improve energy density, so the battery can hold more charge, as well as doubling battery longevity, and improving durability. There is also less environmental impact, as you no longer need cobalt or highly toxic solvents to help make up that slurry

And all of this is excellent news for Tesla. They are constantly trying to innovate, improving their battery density to attain better range and efficiency.

So overall I think this is a huge win for Tesla. Maxwell has already been able to implement this dry electrode technology in their supercapacitors, but say it will be easily adapted to lithium ion production as well, so it won’t be a big cost for Tesla to just add in to their existing production lines. The process also uses less materials, so there are added savings there as well. Maxwell claims this will have 10-20% cost reduction as well as a 16x Production capacity increase, meaning they’ll be able to produce more batteries in less time.

So be on the lookout for even more range gains from Tesla once they can can implement this process. It seems like it's a sure bet, but only time will tell.
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#Tesla #Maxwell #DryElectrode

Last Video: https://youtu.be/YGBC17QfxXI

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Sources/Further Reading:

http://www.powersourcesconference.com/Power%20Sources%202018%20Digest/docs/3-1.pdf

http://s21.q4cdn.com/566123494/files/doc_presentations/2019/Maxwell-Needham-Conference-Deck.pdf

https://www.naefrontiers.org/45598/Paper

Music from Punch Deck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-YZts2u8LI

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