The Key

---

Could be the least exciting bit of Elon Musk is rich at the end as The Most impressive?

Elon Musk , has perhaps The Most exciting portfolio companies on The Planet .

the Spacex mission to Mars, and Tesla with its super-fast hi-tech-Electric -cars.

He claims That his Hyperloop concept to revolutionize the could means of Public Transport . And also, its Boring company is kind of interesting " - it is to find New Ways to dig out the tunnels.

So, what is at the end of The World to change The Most ? It is my contention That there will be a battery business.

the sounds, the dazzling does it?

Mr Musk says he's about to announce a series of advancements in battery technology

But the compact, lightweight Lithium batteries, which means That you can now stream movies on wafer-thin phones will soon be turning on a lot more of your life.

most likely, you are already interested in the potential of Electric cars.

But perhaps you also have the usual concerns in fact, about buying one: The Price , The Range and worry about where you are going to be The Thing to calculate, and how long you will be stuck there.

expected But The Market sure seems to, they are The Future . Just one look at the Tesla share price.

last week, briefly stuck before Toyota The World 's most valuable car, although the Japanese giant sold 30 times as many vehicles in the past Year .

This month, Tesla briefly overtook Toyota is The World 's most valuable car company

One reason for this is That Elon Musk has been teasing investors and competitors with The Promise of the "battery Tag" in some time, soon, in a series of advances in battery tech announced.

World's largest batteries

And cars are not the only great new batteries on The Market .

you may have seen A Story I wrote about how.

Now, Central to the large renewable-energy revolution.

The Covid-19 crisis saw The World 's largest decline in coal consumption since the second World War , says The International energy Agency (IEA)

"We come in an almost exponential phase of growth," says Prof Paul shears. He is an expert on emerging battery technologies at University College London.

He expects That Electric vehicles alone to drive European battery demand by up to a factor of 10 in this decade.

But this explosion in demand will be possible only if we batteries cheaper, more durable and more efficient.

This is a big question for any technology, But have no fear, Mr Musk suggested the "battery day" thanks to a whole cascade of breakthroughs.

Million mile battery

The First of these was announced last week, when the Chinese battery manufacturer is supplying most of The Major car manufacturers, including Tesla, revealed he had produced The First "".

Electric buses in China: Electric -vehicle sales boom, when the batteries are cheaper, says more durable and more efficient

Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), your new battery is in the location of The Power supply of a vehicle of More Than A Million miles (1. 2 million, to be exact - or-1. 9 million km) over a 16-Year -old life.

Most car batteries offer guarantees for 60,000-150,000 miles over a three-to eight-Year period.

This is a huge improvement in battery life, But costs only 10% More Than the previous products, says CATL chair, Zeng Yuqun.

With a battery you need to change never Good News for the Electric Car industry is, of course. But longer battery lasting, are also important for what is known as a "stationary" store.

These are the batteries That we Wind Turbines or solar panels can attach, so That Renewable Energy is not available when The Sun is shining or The Wind is not blowing.

Pretty soon, you might want to even to store cheap off-peak electricity, or collect The Power your own solar panels generated.

The batteries for this Electric vehicle charging station in Abidjan, ivory coast, powered by Solar Energy The cheaper option

is The next barrier, which is likely to be broken, is The Price .

This is a landmark challenge in the Electric vehicle industry, a battery costs under $100 (£78) Per kilowatt-hour.

"At this point, you will begin to receive Electric vehicles, which are cheaper than comparable Internal Combustion vehicles," says Seth Weintraub, a U.S.-based battery technology journalist.

when this happens, the combustion engine is effectively dead. he says, to compare how digital killed film cameras ten years ago.

"In dealerships, we expect an Electric vehicle back in the crowd Somewhere , to a gas vehicle in the back lot Somewhere . "

So when will be pass the crucial price-point?

He thinks it already has.

Mr Weintraub says That his sources tell him That these batteries in Tesla's now, and says, this is one of Mr. Musk's "battery day" Revelations .

the new Tesla factory in China: The Challenge is to provide a battery costs under $ 100 Per kilowatt-hour. Anxiety-free range

Cheaper batteries, some of The Other major concerns, have the potential customers.

That 's because it's set economically to larger batteries in cars.

This has two major advantages.

First , it means That you can go much further on a single charge, so you are going to buy soon to be able to cars, with ranges of 400-500 miles (640-800 km) or more.

the Second, large batteries and recharge faster for the majority of their capacity, so That you may be able to Get Up to 300 miles of range with just 10 Minutes of charging time.

This is similar to The Time it takes to fill a car with petrol or diesel.

So, expect Elon Musk to announce upgrades for The Model S and X, which combine a 400-500 mile range with supercar performance, says Mr. Weintraub.

New mills

So, where are we going to have all these wonderful new batteries?

Again, We Are expecting some major announcements by Mr Musk. Earlier in this month.

Elon Musk Iron Man , real-life alter-ego?

The Man , supposedly the inspiration for the Marvel's Iron Man character, Tony Stark, believed to have been flown by helicopter on a 650-acre area just outside of Bristol.

The Position is calculated according to the prime UK candidate for a Tesla s "Gigafactories", the huge battery plant in The Future .

And he plans a larger factory in the USA, probably in Austin, Texas.

According to Seth Weintraub is a "Terafactory".

This is quite an upgrade.

Gigafactories were so called because they are the production of batteries would power, the storage of billions of watt-hours.

with the reasoning That a terafactory should be able to batteries with a total capacity in the trillion watt-hours.

And the logic of Mr Musk's ever-growing factories remains the same.

raw materials

So, where are all The Battery to get chemicals?

Tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Tesla are trying to find a way to access Kong found Congolese cobalt in a more humane way and with the right accountability

Tesla s Chinese partner CATL has a way to get batteries free of cobalt, at least for shorter distances, and vehicles.

cobalt is expensive, and many come from the DR Congo, where it is in connection with children's work.

There are no plans to get rid of the main ingredient in lightweight batteries, Lithium .

There are large supplies in the salt deposits all over The World . including in the remote Bolivian Andes.

The Problem is the current method of separation of the Lithium in these deposits is slow and inefficient.

The largest salt-lake, which are currently being mined, is the Salar de Atacama in Chile. And at a significantly lower altitude, the Chileans can natural evaporation to crystallize the salts, especially due to the intense sun of the Atacama Desert .

At 10,000 sq km, Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni salt plain 50-70% of the known global Lithium reserves

carries with it, in Spite of these advantages, The Process takes months, and only represents about 30% of the available Lithium .

That 's where a would-be comes Elon Musk -style tycoon with a similarly exotic name.

Teague Egan, is working with scientists on what he says is a "nano" filters, and more like 90% of the Lithium is again.

Instead of months, he thinks it could eventually only take a couple of days.

Mr Egan says his company EnergyX is already talking to major players on the application of the technology on a commercial scale.

If effective, it might be a drastic reduction in the cost of Lithium - remove one of the biggest bottlenecks, the expansion of battery production.

What this is really about

Mr Musk to create, the ambition to buy the iPhone of cars - a must-have product That will revolutionize our driving experience, while also providing him a big profit.

That is what moat of us in our old diesel and gasoline cars.

electric cars, car industry, elon musk, tesla, climate change

Source of news: bbc.com