Car battery that could last a million miles may soon be developed by Tesla

Elon Musk has reportedly promised Tesla would soon have a million-mile battery, more than double what drivers can expect today and new research suggests this could be true. 

Elon Musk previously promised that Tesla would soon be able to power its electric cars for more than 1 million miles over the course of their lifespan.

Wierd reports that earlier this month, a group of battery researchers at Dalhousie University, published a paper in The Journal of the Electrochemical Society describing a lithium-ion battery that “should be able to power an electric vehicle for over 1 million miles” while losing less than 10% of its energy capacity during its lifetime.

They also noted their battery could be especially useful for self-driving robotaxis and long-haul electric trucks, two products Tesla is developing.

However according to Wierd the paper's authors don’t herald the results as a breakthrough and present it as a benchmark for other battery researchers. “Full details of these cells including electrode compositions, electrode loadings, electrolyte compositions, additives used, etc. have been provided,” led physicist Jeff Dahn and his colleagues wrote in the paper. “This has been done so that others can recreate these cells and use them as benchmarks for their own R+D efforts.”