Tesla’s new “game changer” battery will last 70+ years and make gas guzzlers obsolete, Musk says
Elon Musk has promised to release a world-changing car battery on September 22, a day he’s dubbed “Battery Day.”
He says it has been built to last over a million miles, more than twice as long as his already-record-setting car batteries.
With the average American driving 14,500 miles per year, that’s over 70 years of driving, far longer than the body of a car would likely last.
When car bodies wear out, Musk says the batteries could be reused in new cars and/or used for solar electricity storage for homes.
Even after the “million mile batteries” run for a million miles, their cells will still have 90% of their battery life left.
His new batteries use lithium-iron phosphate instead of lithium-ion, a cheaper, more abundant material, and eliminates the use of controversial cobalt.
Like the scientist his car company is named after, Musk promises to share his new technology with competing electric car companies, offering both to sell them his battery and making public the basic design for it.
Musk calls the upcoming “Battery Day” the “most important day in Tesla’s history.”
Tesla stock prices have doubled in the last two months in anticipation, and Elon Musk just surpassed Mark Zuckerburg as the world’s third richest man yesterday because of it.