The Daimler board member currently in charge of research and development oversight, Ola Kaellenius, was recently quoted as saying that the auto industry as a whole appeared to be moving toward electric vehicle batteries with nickel-rich chemistry.
These comments included the notation that many firms (presumably German ones in particular) had been in recent times experimenting heavily with possible reductions in cobalt reliance, which is something that we’ve reported on a fair bit ourselves here at CleanTechnica in recent times.
“The main trend is toward NMC (nickel, manganese, and cobalt),” stated Kaellenius (as quoted by Reuters). “We saw a mix of 1:1:1 then we went to 6:2:2 and now some suppliers are even talking about 9:05:05.”
Those figures are the ratio of nickel to manganese to cobalt.
Reuters notes: “Chinese manufacturers use a composition called LFP which has a lower energy density but also does without cobalt, while Japanese carmakers use LMO, or lithium manganese oxide, which is used by Nissan and LG Chem.”
As it stands, though, there’s still quite a lot of variety among electric vehicle battery manufacturers as to the chemistry being used, with Panasonic and Tesla notoriously relying on the NCA (lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide) chemistry in its cars.
Other than NMC and NCA, NMC (lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide) remains in widespread use amongst some battery and auto manufacturers (as “widespread” as battery manufacturing yet is, that is).
There are other chemistries as well, some in niche use only, such as Toshiba’s durable lithium-titanate-oxide batteries, which have been used in some variants of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV.
Related:
Exciting Developments In NMC 811 Lithium Battery Technology
Nope, Cobalt’s Not A Problem For The EV Revolution, Or Tesla (#CleanTechnica Exclusive)
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Autonomous Drones for Better Farming
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
