A rumor that Tesla may be using graphene in a new battery design that could increase the range of its electric vehicles is generating lots of industry chatter. According to a recent post in Clean Technia and in Business Insider, Tesla may – or may not be – using graphene in a new battery design to increase the range of its electric vehicles to 500 miles between charges.
Business Insider says that Tesla’s Model S sedan can travel about 265 miles on a single charge, but that the company’s CEO, Elon Musk said last month that “it will be possible to have a 500-mile range car,” adding “in fact, we could do it quite soon.”
Said the Business Insider post:
“According to China’s Xinhua news agency (via Gas2 and Clean Technica), Tesla could soon achieve this 500-mile battery thanks to a development in graphene-based anodes, which can reportedly quadruple the density and output of lithium-ion batteries.
“Graphene, for those who don’t know, is a carbon-based “super material” that’s roughly 200 times stronger than steel but nearly transparent when laid out in sheets. First isolated in 2003, graphene is as an excellent conductor of heat and energy, and certainly an ideal material for batteries.”
There seems to some disagreement over just how long it would take for graphene could be used commercially for applications like electric vehicles, but it sure is a fascinating debate to follow.
