Tesla and Panasonic to start production of longer-life aluminium coated batteries for electric cars

Novonix, a specialized start-up company spun out of Dr. Jeff Dahn’s lab at Dalhousie University has developed high-precision chargers that measure the coulombic efficiency of cells to less than 20 ppm noise (typically less than 10 ppm) and to better than 50 ppm accuracy. The cells with aluminium coating have been proven to last for more than two decades yielding performance of the highest level.

Premium car maker Tesla Inc, has announced that they would use aluminium both in their car chassis and batteries, which they claim could last twenty years. The company along with Panasonic are planning to start production of longer life aluminium-coated battery cells for vehicles, starting with the Model 3, at Gigafactory 1 by June this year, industry sources reported.

Novonix which has expertise in materials and cell testing has spent the entire last year developing the high-precision chargers. The company offers cell testing services, sales of aluminium coated high precision chargers along with materials testing services for some of the renowned automotive and battery brands of the world.

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Tesla battery research partner Dahn, which is also a pioneer in lithium ion battery cells, explained that by investing in longer-life aluminium-coated batteries the carmaker is actually reducing the cost of delivered kWh for its utility-scale and residential projects.

Tesla uses Dahn’s Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (NMC) battery cells for its stationary storage products Powerwall and Powerpack, and the first cell production at Gigafactory 1 was for those products.