Creating long-range electric vehicles that are still comparable in affordability to gasoline cars has long been the challenge of the electric vehicle industry. While improvements in technology have made batteries cheaper and more efficient, the average addition of a battery to a vehicle still costs $10,000 and the highest quality ones, made by Tesla, struggle when it comes to affordability for middle class consumers.
However, Nikola Motor, a Phoenix-based start-up, claims it has created a new battery cell with double the energy of traditional batteries and at half the weight and cost. On top of that, the batteries don’t use cobalt or nickel, meaning the batteries have a reduced environmental impact as well.
This revolutionary change could push electric vehicles from their average 300 mile range to almost 600, making them more convenient and efficient (not to mention environmentally friendly) than fuel-powered vehicles.
The company says it will not release a prototype of the battery for at least 10 months as they plan to run demonstrations of the product at their Nikola World technology summit in 2020. Details about the battery are still hazy, but the company says the key to its discovery was starting over from the ground up with a whole new design approach.
