Massachusetts-based battery startup Pellion Technologies says it has developed a lithium metal battery that is twice as powerful as a traditional lithium ion battery, but weighs Only half of conventional lithium-ion batteries. Paramount Technology is currently selling its batteries to commercial customers.
Its first batch of commercial customers were professional users who valued the increased battery range of the new battery, which allowed commercial drones to fly longer, and was willing to pay more than acquiring traditional batteries. Pylon's new battery has a relatively short service life, and it is almost exhausted after 50 charge / discharge cycles. But Pleasure expects new battery sales to reach millions of dollars this year, which can be used to study how to extend battery life and reduce manufacturing costs.
It is too early to talk about using lithium metal batteries for electric vehicles or energy storage. Although there are too many obstacles to solve, the promise of a greatly increased battery energy density is too tempting to be ignored. The energy density of the battery cells used by Tesla is 600Wh / L and 200Wh / kg, while the energy density of Perion's lithium metal batteries has almost doubled to 1,000Wh / L, 400Wh / kg.
Compared with the current battery industry's annual increase in battery energy density by 10%, a 100% increase in energy density is a leap change. If Perion can overcome the short battery life limitation in the early days, it will provide Tesla cars with a range of 800 kilometers (500 miles) when the battery is fully charged, instead of the current maximum range of 400 kilometers.