Manganese Could Be the Secret Behind Truly Mass-Market EVs
3rd May 2022
Most automakers are dying to sell you—and the world—an electric car. But they’re up against the challenge of our global-warming time: dauntingly tight supplies of both batteries and the ethically sourced raw materials required to make them.
Tesla and Volkswagen are among the automakers who see manganese—element No. 25 on the periodic table, situated between chromium and iron—as the latest, alluringly plentiful metal that may make both batteries and EVs affordable enough for mainstream buyers.
That’s despite the dispiriting history of the first (and only) EV to use a high-manganese battery, the original Nissan Leaf, beginning in 2011. But with the industry needing all the batteries it can get, improved high-manganese batteries could carve out a niche, perhaps as a mid-priced option between lithium-iron phosphate chemistry, and primo nickel-rich batteries in top luxury and performance models.
“We need tens, maybe hundreds of millions of tons, ultimately. So the materials used to produce these batteries need to be common materials, or you can’t scale.”
—Elon Musk