BOSTON – A Massachusetts-based company has created a new electric vehicle battery that could provide 1,000 miles of range on a single charge, Fast Company reported.
24M Technologies, which spun out from MIT some time around 2015, combined several existing technologies to create a battery with a far longer range than anything currently on the American market.
24M’s batteries use more energy-dense lithium metal instead of lithium-ion, an approach that Fast Company explained, “[hasn’t] been widely used because of safety issues.” Those safety issues, apparently, have been mitigated with a special separator that helps prevent fires.
The batteries also use a semisolid electrolyte, reducing the need for materials like copper, aluminum, and plastic.
As the batteries have not been tested by automakers, it will still be years, at least, before EVs with 1,000-mile ranges are available in the United States. The same cannot be said of China, however, where a plug-in hybrid is on the market that can reportedly achieve 1,300 miles on a single charge (and for a fraction of the price of EVs in the States).
Unfortunately, the current administration is far more committed to fighting its proxy trade war with China than the health of our planet, and it has imposed costly tariffs on clean energy technology imports from the country.
This means Americans will have to wait a lot longer than Chinese citizens to enjoy the benefits of affordable, long-range electric vehicles. (The most inexpensive EV available to Americans is currently the Nissan Leaf S, which, according to Car and Driver, is available for $29,280 and boasts an unimpressive range of 149 miles).
If and when we finally get 1,000-mile electric vehicles, it could go a long way toward spurring more EV adoption and, in turn, improving our air quality and slowing the overheating of our planet.
“Range anxiety,” the fear that people have of being abandoned in an electric vehicle without access to a charging station, is less of a real problem than many people believe but still has a real impact on their decisions to buy or not buy an electric car. The ability to go 1,000 miles on a single charge should put that fear to rest for good.
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