In addition to lowering battery prices and increasing energy density, electric car manufacturers also have the goal of making their vehicles as safe as possible. That means mitigating thermal runaway, the most common cause of electric vehicle fires. Accidents occur because: lithium-ion batteries generate heat, emit heat, and burn everything around them. A new patent from Tesla hopes to prevent this with a metal-air battery pack connected to the main battery pack.
The principle is very simple. According to the patent, the two battery packs are connected via pipes and valves. If thermal runaway begins, valves open, allowing hot gases to flow through the metal-air battery pack, cooling the gases before they escape around the car.
Tesla patent suggests using metal-air batteries to alleviate thermal runaway problems
For metal-air batteries to become a practical solution for electric vehicles, a large number of problems need to be solved, but thermal runaway is not the problem Among other things, the reason is simple: they need air to work. Their cathode is ambient air, which means they "breathe" to generate electricity.
The heat from the lithium-ion battery pack can be fatal to metal-air battery devices. Considering this is a mitigation option, this is perhaps the lesser of two evils.
Patents like this make us wonder if Tesla Battery Day will also reveal any breakthroughs regarding metal-air batteries. After all, it would only make sense if there were a practical metal-air battery pack added to current battery packs. Metal-air batteries have much higher energy density than lithium-ion, but their cyclability is very low. In other words, the battery becomes useless after a few charges. Has Tesla solved this problem?
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.