Tesla research group shows that new battery could last up to 100 years

Teslas, in the future, may have a century of battery life if Tesla’s research group in Canada can turn their recent research paper into reality. Dr. Jeff Dahn and his team at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada have been working exclusively with Tesla since 2015 to develop new Li-ion batteries.

Tesla described the partnership in 2015 as, “Jeff Dahn is helping to develop Li-ion batteries with improved lifetime, increased energy density, and lower cost. This collaboration is a natural fit.” While it remains to be seen if the research team’s dream will be developed into a working production battery, the partnership appears to have paid off.

Tesla recently renewed their contract with Dahn’s team, ensuring a partnership through 2026. In addition, Dahn has added Dr. Chongyin Yang and Dr. Michael Metzger to his team in order to further enhance the research group’s ability to file for battery patents on behalf of Tesla. Dr. Yang is actually Tesla Canada’s Research Chair. He’s worked in energy storage and conversion for over thirteen years, having come from the University of Maryland in the United States. Dr. Metzger, a former Bosch scientist, brings an interesting background in battery design with an emphasis in desalination uses.

The team recently wrote a research paper called “Li[Ni0.5Mn0.3Co0.2]O2 as a Superior Alternative to LiFePO4 for Long-Lived Low Voltage Li-Ion Cells” in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. The paper focuses on using a nickel-based battery (NMC) to allow for a greater number of charging cycles. The researchers specifically state, “NMC cells, particularly those balanced and charged to 3.8 V, show better coulombic efficiency, less capacity fade and higher energy density compared to LFP cells and are projected to yield lifetimes approaching a century at 25 °C.”

Maintaining a temperature of 25 °C (77 °F) may be unrealistic in real-world conditions. But, Teslas do have the best battery thermal management systems currently available on the market. It has long been known that relatively stable temperatures result in a prolonged battery life expectancy.

Many prospective EV owners wonder about the life expectancy of Tesla batteries, noting that the replacement cost for a car’s battery pack can range from $12,000 - $22,000. There isn’t a consistent answer to the life expectancy question.

Current Tesla battery life can be affected by factors including temperature, discharge activity, Fast Charger use, and driving habits. It is believed that Tesla batteries typically last approximately 1,500 charge cycles. If Tesla’s research team can implement the new battery design in the future, Tesla battery life expectancy would indeed increase (becoming an heirloom for us to pass on to our children’s children.)

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Tesla Files Patents for Wireless Charging the Robotaxi

Not a Tesla App

Tesla has filed four patents for wireless charging. Previously, Tesla acquired the experience and skills of Wiferion’s engineering team in an acquisition in June 2023. Tesla quickly sold off the company but kept the company’s engineers. This was an acqui-hire, where large companies rapidly onboard top talent by purchasing a company for human capital, rather than products, services, or intellectual products.

Following the Wiferion acquisition, Tesla showed off a wireless charging mat several times and even confirmed they are working on wireless inductive home charging. We expected this to arrive with the Cybertruck, but now we hope to see more details at the upcoming Robotaxi reveal event in October, at the Warner Bro.’s studio in Hollywood.

Wireless Charging Patents

First Patent

The first of the four patents looks at temperature sensors and applications for wireless charging. Tesla intends to track the temperatures across both the wireless charging pad, as well as the inductive charging coils in the vehicle. The third patent details how they’re planning to use this in an innovative way.

WIPO

Second Patent

The second patent is a shorting switch, which is designed to prevent or reduce leakage of energy to ground sources near the wireless charging mat. This shorting switch is used to create a short with the receiving side of the inductive charging, essentially making energy transfer faster and more efficient – while also reducing the amount of energy that is leaked out elsewhere. We’ll leave this one for the electrical engineers to explain in our forums.

Third Patent

The third patent is actually the wireless charging circuit itself, and how to manufacture it. This one is straightforward and explains how Tesla intends to design and build the prototype inductive wireless charging mats. Beyond the basic design, this document also details how Tesla intends to lay out the inductive charging coils and how it expects the entire assembly to function – which includes a small cable that runs to a wall-mounted energy source.

Fourth Patent

The final patent is for intelligently estimating and adapting to variations in wireless charging layouts and systems. This one is probably the most interesting of the four patents, as it involves adjusting the coils in the mat to dynamically account for the positioning of the vehicle, as well as responding to the information from the first patent – the temperature sensors.

Essentially, by varying the coil induction across the mat, Tesla intends to dynamically aim the wireless charger at different parts of the inductive coils in the vehicle, thereby reducing heat. This patent will also help Tesla to determine the adequate charge speed and other key information they may need to relay to the vehicle, or back to fleet management software.

Cybertruck Inductive Charging

While the Cybertruck never actually arrived with inductive charging, it was noted in the Service Manual to have 2 Inductive Charging Headers, so it is ready to be upgraded to have Inductive Charging support. We expect that Tesla will release this as a purchasable upgrade for the Cybertruck sometime in the future – likely as a package with the Inductive Charging Mat.

Robotaxi Inductive Charging

The Robotaxi will likely be the first of Tesla’s vehicles to feature inductive charging – which. makes sense given its autonomous nature. Plugging in a NACS charger will likely be fairly difficult to automate, and the 5-10% efficiency loss of wireless charging isn’t a huge deal. It’s possible Tesla chose this route due to cost, as having an automated NACS cable like the “snake” prototype we saw years ago could be costly.

Having a simple parking stall with an inductive mat on it, alongside all the tech and supplies needed to automatically clean and sanitize the Robotaxi makes far more sense. This means that a Robotaxi will be able to roll in, charge and clean itself, and then roll out to go pick up more customers. Tesla is planning a super-efficient system here that requires minimal intervention from real humans.

Essentially, by effectively managing the Robotaxi fleet, Tesla can offset the increased time that wireless charging would take, and also reduce the amount of waste energy by charging when energy is cheapest. While this could prevent Tesla from taking advantage of the sheer battery mass of a Robotaxi fleet – by selling power when it’s expensive and travel demand is low – this doesn’t make it impossible.

Smartphone manufacturers have demonstrated reverse wireless charging with the inductive charging coils already present in modern smartphones. We could see Tesla low-power bi-directional charging in the future too.

We’re looking forward to seeing Tesla unveil this at the upcoming Robotaxi event. It’ll be something special, for sure.

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Tesla Adds Ability to Swipe Left and Right in Browser

Not a Tesla App

Tesla has made a spate of improvements to its vehicle software recently, starting with the big Spring Update, and then the Summer Update more recently. While we see most of the updates mentioned in the release notes, Tesla often also adds smaller quality-of-life improvements along the way.

Browser Controls

When using the Tesla Browser in the vehicle, you can now swipe left and right to go back or forward a page in your browser history. When you start swiping on the screen, Tesla’s Chromium-based browser will now display an arrow that slides out from the left or right. The circular icon is initially white, meaning that the action won’t be executed, but if you continue moving to the left/right, the icon will eventually turn blue. The blue icon means that the action will be executed once you let go of the screen.

This is a simple quality-of-life improvement that makes using the built-in browser easier.

We’re happy to see updates like these come to the browser, whose last major feature was the full-screen button that was added in update 2024.14.

Future Browser Improvements

While we’re on the topic, let’s look at some future Tesla web browser improvements we’d love to see.

Access to the Mic

Full access to the vehicle microphone isn’t allowed through the web browser right now. That means if you want to get into a Discord, Slack, or Teams call, you’ll only be able to listen – not speak. All of these apps fully function in the Tesla browser for sending messages, but are fairly limited for meetings.

Better Bookmarks

Tesla’s current bookmark system is simple and barebones. You can bookmark a page and give it a name. Once you visit a bookmarked page enough, it’ll show up as an icon in the center of the browser when you go to the homepage.

However, it's difficult to keep a larger set of bookmarks since there aren’t any organizational tools provided. A better bookmark system or the ability to sync bookmarks would be a welcomed feature.

Custom Homepage

Tesla’s current homepage in its browser is simply just a Tesla logo in black or white, depending on whether your car is in dark mode or not. A custom homepage that provides widgets with basic local news, stock information or other details would be fantastic. We’d ask for weather too, but the recent Summer update shows weather at the top of your screen.

If you’ve got more ideas for the fairly barebones Tesla web browser, let us know.

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