To power a device like a car, charged atoms or molecules called ions move from the anode to the cathode through the electrolyte, releasing their extra electrons along the way and producing electricity. Each cell has four key components that make up a battery: an anode, a cathode, a separator, and an electrolyte, which is usually a liquid. The lithium-ion battery, explainedĮVs aren’t powered by one big battery but rather thousands of smaller cells. Luckily, better battery technology isn’t just in development it’s starting to come to market. Climate change is only accelerating, and every new car that runs on fossil fuels stands to exacerbate the threat. This is all well and good, but time is of the essence. Even the government is getting involved: In March, President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act - a 1950 law that allows the president to boost domestic production of certain products in an emergency - to increase the country’s supply of the rare metals and materials used in EVs. Meanwhile, Ford and GM are investing in new battery research, hoping to get an edge over Tesla. Longtime battery manufacturers like CATL and LG Energy Solution are rethinking the fundamental chemistry of batteries so that they work better in EVs. The race to address these problems is speeding up. Shortages of these materials could ultimately hold back EV manufacturing across the auto industry, and RJ Scaringe, the CEO of the electric vehicle maker Rivian, recently warned that the world only makes less than 10 percent of the EV battery cells that it will need to produce a decade from now. They’re currently made from scarce materials, like cobalt and nickel, that are increasingly expensive. The lithium-ion batteries in cars today could benefit from new base components, too. ( Gas and hybrid cars have fire risks, too.) Chevy recently had to recall every Chevy Bolt it had ever sold due to battery fire risk. EV batteries also need to be less prone to bursting into flames, an issue that’s rare but very concerning. They need to go even farther on a single charge, and they need to weigh less. So, if this EV revolution is going to succeed, batteries need to get better. Batteries also take up a huge amount of space in the cars that we already have, which means we can’t just add more batteries to get more range.

This is one of the biggest concerns that people have with EVs since more capacity equals a longer driving range.

They can only be charged and discharged so many times, and we may have hit the upper limit of their storage capacity. As the technology has been incorporated into electric vehicles (EVs), though, these batteries have been pushed to their limit. Lithium itself is the lightest metal on the periodic table, which makes lithium-ion batteries extra portable. Lithium-ion batteries became the go-to form of energy storage because they have an extremely high energy density, which means they can store a lot of energy within a relatively small volume. But three decades later, this battery technology is due for a major upgrade, since the harsh reality of climate change means that lithium-ion batteries don’t just need to power our devices, but our cars, too. When consumer lithium-ion batteries debuted in the 1990s, they were revolutionary: They recharged in a few hours or less and made our modern computers and phones truly portable. This story is part of Recode by Vox’s Tech Support series, which explores solutions for our warming world.

Tesla car battery overview