Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, claims that a new manganese battery could be crucial to increasing EV production.


Elon Musk confirmed that manganese is being investigated as a cathode material in a speech to Tesla Gigafactory Berlin employees during the factory's opening ceremony. Alternatives to affordable LFP battery materials will be required to scale EV batteries to the 300 terawatt-hours of annual production needed to achieve sustainable transportation, he said.
Elon Musk has long advocated for the use of manganese as a cathode material in electric vehicle batteries, and he recently reaffirmed his position during the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin opening ceremony. When asked about graphene's potential as a battery-making material at an address to German Gigafactory employees, Elon Musk responded, "I think there's an interesting possibility for manganese." Tesla's CEO has previously stated that the business is looking into manganese as an alternative to the iron or phosphorus it currently employs in its LFP batteries for its standard range vehicles.

According to Musk, the world will require at least 300 terawatt-hours (TWh) of battery cell manufacture at some point in the future in order to fully transition away from fossil fuels. Only materials as inexpensive and numerous as those found in LFP battery packs, as well as manganese, can achieve such scale. The recent meteoric jump in nickel prices triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine only confirmed Tesla's CEO's point, as the typical nickel-cobalt-aluminum battery components used in long-range electric vehicles are far from cheap and plentiful.

This is why Elon Musk wants to add manganese to the iron and phosphorus used in the manufacture of more affordable EV batteries, in order to eventually achieve the hundreds of TWh/year production required for sustainable transportation. Tesla has already used manganese in some of its Powerwall battery cells, but Elon Musk said at yesterday's Giga Berlin opening ceremony that it can and should become a viable alternative to the common battery materials used now.


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