Can Tesla Keep Its Million-mile EV Promise?

According to the Tesla High Mileage Leaderboard, a Model S owner known as @gem8mingen has racked up 621,373 miles to date – that’s the equivalent of driving from New York to Los Angeles 222 times.

The unofficial leaderboard is getting lots of attention since there’s not much data available on the longevity of Tesla vehicles; the cars haven’t been around long enough for people to age out of them. We’re seeing longevity testing play out in real-time, with most of the data provided by Tesla enthusiasts and shuttle car companies.

In April 2019, Elon Musk tweeted that the Model 3’s body and drive unit “is designed like a commercial truck” with a life of 1,000,000 miles. The average lifespan of a car is 150,000 miles.

In September, Musk dropped another bombshell by promising a battery that would – just like the Model 3 body and drive unit – last one million miles. A team of researchers from Dalhousie University partnered with Tesla to announce a “far superior” lithium-ion battery. While the average lithium-ion battery gives somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 discharge cycles, the “million-mile battery” had 90% of its life left after 4,000 discharge cycles. However, since announcing this past May that we should be expecting a lithium-ion shortage sooner rather than later, the EV company has begun research into making a better, longer-lasting battery.

The tweets came as part of a discussion about Model 3 Teslas being used in an autonomous ride-hailing fleet, and how much revenue they could generate over their lifetime. With the longevity of one million miles, the profitability of Musk’s proposed robo-taxi network ("The Tesla Network”) sounds promising.

The Cobalt Problem

The Dalhousie team has published the full details of the new battery, which uses lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide for its cathode and artificial graphite for its anode. The cobalt graphite creates a single-crystal nanostructure (rather than many small crystals) which is less likely to crack when the battery is charging.

However, the million-mile battery’s reliance on cobalt presents a problem for Tesla, which has previously indicated that it intends to use nickel instead of cobalt in battery cathodes. Cobalt is not only expensive and increasingly scarce for Tesla’s supply chain but is also known as a conflict mineral linked to child labor.

Even though this particular battery probably won’t be used in Teslas, the cobalt issue doesn’t mean the million-mile goal is unobtainable. As Business Insider points out, the Dalhousie announcement shows that the battery is feasible and that we can expect a major announcement soon about a battery that lasts a million miles, is compatible with Teslas, is cheaper, and uses less (or zero) cobalt.

EVs Last Longer

Inside EVs explains why electric vehicles last longer than gasoline cars, saying, “The long life is owed mostly to some particular traits of the battery-powered car. For example, unlikegasoline cars, Tesla vehicles require no traditional oil changes, fuel filter, spark plug replacements, or emission checks. For Tesla Model S owners, even brake pad replacements are rare, as the regenerative braking both returns energy to the battery and decelerates the vehicle. No moving parts within an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) also decrease vibration, one of the most impactful items towards the health of the car.”

The one real concern, therefore, seems to be battery degradation, but the Dalhousie research has shown that Tesla is very close to addressing this challenge.

In an example of extreme usage, shuttle company Tesloop’s Teslas each rack up over 17,000 miles per month and are showing no signs of slowing after 300,000 miles. Its CEO praises the Teslas for their “unprecedented durability,” and have said the cars “never died of old age.”

With proper charging, servicing, and maintenance (including installing the latest software updates), a Tesla with a million-mile battery could last a lifetime for the average car owner who drives 13,500 miles every year.

Hansjorg Gemmingen hit the headlines in November when he crossed the one million kilometer mark in his Model S. We can expect to see a media frenzy one day soon when Gemmingen becomes the first Tesla owner to make Musk’s one-million-mile promise a reality.