Panasonic will leave the path of cobalt
Panasonic is currently one of the largest battery manufacturers in the world, other things as you know maybe you have a TV but good. Something also interesting is that they are the exclusive supplier of batteries for the Tesla Model 3. These batteries for Tesla are manufactured jointly with the company of Elon Musk in the Gigafactory they have in Nevada.
Everything is thanks to the huge rise of cobalt because of its scarce price rose by 235% in 2017, going to cost up to 81,360 dollars per ton at the beginning of the year and currently standing at 90,500 dollars. It is obvious that we started looking for and creating alternatives to not use this material for the costs another company that is doing this is Samsung. From the Panasonic car battery section they say that they have already reduced the use of cobalt in a significant way, and that They want to reach 0% in the near future. It will be that they will find a more efficient method with some x material instead of cobalt or perhaps they will create a new one something like the new polymers that have been created these years.
Currently, lithium-ion batteries are made up of 60% nickel, 20% manganese and 20% cobalt, in a mixture that is commonly known as nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC). Tesla's 2170 batteries are currently the most densely packed, weighing 66 grams with a capacity of 6,000 mAh. Tesla has achieved this by reducing the amount of cobalt in them and increasing the amount of nickel without impairing thermal stability. (80% nickel, 10% manganese and 10% cobalt)
taking these data that each of these batteries carries about 6.6 grams of cobalt. The Tesla Model 3 of 74 kWh equips 4,416 of these cells, so we have almost 29 kg of cobalt in the car. Taking the price of this mineral today ($ 90,500 per ton), those 29 kg cost $ 2,637. Now finishing this according to how we have seen the situation is delicate without any alternative because in the end the cobalt will become unfeasible, we hope that a new and better alternative will emerge that can do something