TECH NEWS: Musk makes revolutionary strides in battery technology at Tesla

By Louis Fourie

CAPE TOWN – On September 22, during a Tesla Battery Event after its annual shareholder meeting, Elon Musk lifted the veil regarding the battery innovations at Tesla. And as always, the revelations were revolutionary.

Elon Musk has stated several times in the past how important sustainable energy was. At the Battery Day he emphasised again that the future of world depends on accelerated sustainable energy generation, storage of energy and electric vehicles.

Except for offering an improved storage product that would provide more energy, allow longer travel distances and is cheaper to manufacture, Musk has the overarching goal of more affordable electric Tesla vehicles of $25 000 (about R412 500). Therefore, more affordable battery cells are needed, since affordable battery cells mean affordable cars, which will increase sales and thus sustainability.

To manufacture an affordable battery cell, Tesla (typically) went back to the drawing board to rethink their current product and processes and came up with a multi-modal, creative engineering, and innovative approach not only with regard to the battery, but also the manufacturing processes. All aspects of the battery have been reconsidered in their overall goal to halve the cost per kW/h.