How Elon Musk aims to revolutionise battery technology 

By Justin Rowlatt 

Chief environment correspondent 

BBC business

Anxiety-free range

Cheaper batteries will address some of the other key concerns potential customers have.

That is because it will make it economical to put bigger batteries into cars.

That has two major advantages.

First, it means they can go much further on a single charge, so you'll soon be able to buy cars with ranges of 400-500 miles (640-800km) or more.

Second, big batteries charge faster for the bulk of their capacity, so you might be able to get up to 300 miles of range with just 10 minutes of charging.

That's comparable to the time it takes to fill a car with petrol or diesel.

Petrol:汽油   diesel：柴油

So expect Elon Musk to announce upgrades for the Model S and X which will combine 400-500 mile range with supercar performance, says Mr Weintraub.

New factories

So, where are we going to make all these wonderful new batteries?

Again, we are expecting some major announcements from Mr Musk. Earlier this month his private jet reportedly landed at Luton airport.

The man who is allegedly the inspiration for the Marvel Iron Man character, Tony Stark, is believed to have been flown by helicopter to a 650-acre site just outside Bristol.

allegedly/əˈledʒɪdli/ adv. 依其申述；据说，据称     Marvel ：漫威 Iron Man：钢铁侠

The location is reckoned to be the prime UK candidate for one of Tesla's "Gigafactories", the huge battery plants it's pioneering.

Gigafactories：giga-factory 超级工厂 giga：十亿·千兆

And he is planning an even bigger factory in the US, probably in Austin, Texas.

According to Seth Weintraub this one will be a "Terafactory".

Terafactory： tera-factory，tera有兆的意思

That's quite an upgrade.

Gigafactories were so called because they would produce batteries that could store billions of watt-hours of power.

By that reasoning a terafactory should be able to make batteries with a total capacity in the trillions of watt-hours.

And the logic of Mr Musk's ever-expanding factories remains the same. The bigger the scale, the easier it will be to deliver cost-slashing innovations, he believes.

slashing /'slæʃɪŋ/ adj. 猛烈的；严厉的；冲劲十足的；巨大的

Raw materials

So where are all the battery chemicals going to come from?

Tesla's Chinese partner CATL has found a way to make batteries free of cobalt, at least for shorter-range vehicles.

cobalt /ˈkəʊbɔːlt/n. [化学] 钴；钴类颜料；由钴制的深蓝色

Cobalt is expensive and a lot is sourced from DR Congo, where it has been associated with child labour.

DR Congo：刚果（金）

There are no plans to get rid of the key ingredient in lightweight batteries, lithium.

There are large supplies in salt deposits around the world. including the biggest single reserve - as yet unexploited - in the hauntingly beautiful Salar de Uyuni salt plain in the remote Bolivian Andes.

salt deposit盐垢；盐类沉积，盐矿，盐矿床    Salar de Uyuni salt plain乌尤尼盐沼平原

Bolivian  /bəˈlɪviən/ adj. 玻利维亚的；玻利维亚人的n. 玻利维亚人   Andes/'ændi:z/ 安第斯山脉

hauntingly/ˈhɔːntɪŋli/ adv. 萦绕于心头地；难以忘怀地

The problem is current method of separating out the lithium in these deposits is slow and inefficient.

The biggest salt lake currently being mined is the Salar de Atacama in Chile. And at their significantly lower altitude, the Chileans can use natural evaporation to crystallise the salts, driven by the intense sunshine of the Atacama Desert.

Salar de Atacama in Chile智利的阿塔卡马盐水湖   evaporation/ɪˌvæpəˈreɪʃn/ 蒸发；消失

crystallise/'kristəlaiz/vt. 使…结晶；使具体化（等于crystallize）   Atacama Desert：阿卡塔马沙漠

Despite these advantages, the process still takes months, and only recovers about 30% of the available lithium.

Which is where a wannabe Elon Musk-style tycoon with a similarly exotic name comes in.

Wannabe：wanna-be  n. 想达到目标的人；赶超崇拜者的人 adj. 想要成为的；自封的

tycoon/taɪˈkuːn/ ：a person who is successful in business or industry and has become rich and powerful （企业界的）大亨，巨头，巨子

exotic /ɪɡˈzɒtɪk/ from or in another country, especially a tropical one; seeming exciting and unusual because it is connected with foreign countries 来自异国（尤指热带国家）的；奇异的；异国情调的；异国风味的  • brightly-coloured exotic flowers/plants/birds 色彩鲜艳的异国花卉╱植物╱鸟儿

Teague Egan is working with scientists on what he says is a "nanoparticle" filter that can separate lithium from other salts in solution, and will recover more like 90% of the lithium.

Teague/ti:g/爱尔兰人 Egan伊根（爱尔兰人名）

nanoparticle/ˈnænəʊpɑːtɪkl/  nano-particle的组合词nano是纳，毫微的意思，particle是粒子，微粒，质点，极小粒的意思，合起来的nanoparticle就是纳米颗粒

filter /ˈfɪltə(r)/  1.a device containing paper, sand, chemicals, etc. that a liquid or gas is passed through in order to remove any materials that are not wanted 滤器；过滤器 •an air/oil filter 空气过滤器；滤油器

2.a device that allows only particular types of light or sound to pass through it 滤光器；滤声器；滤波器

3.( computing 计 ) a program that stops certain types of electronic information, email, etc. being sent to a computer 筛选（过滤）程序

4.( BrE ) a light on a set of traffic lights showing that traffic can turn left or right while traffic that wants to go straight ahead must wait （交通红灯指示不得直行的同时，表示可左转或右转的）分流指示灯

Instead of months, he reckons it could eventually take just a few days.

Mr Egan says his firm EnergyX is already talking to key players about applying the technology on a commercial scale.

If effective it could dramatically cut the cost of lithium - removing one of the biggest bottlenecks to the ramping up of battery production..

Bottleneck：瓶颈

What this is really about

Which brings us back to my original premise - that batteries will be the most transformative part of Elon Musk's empire.

premise/ˈpremɪs/( BrE also prem·iss ) ( formal ) a statement or an idea that forms the basis for a reasonable line of argument 前提；假定

Mr Musk's ambition is to create the iPhone of cars - a must-buy product that revolutionises our driving experience, while also delivering him a big fat profit.

That's what will make us ditch our old diesel and petrol cars.

ditch /dɪtʃ/ [ VN ] ( informal ) to get rid of sth/sb because you no longer want or need it/them 摆脱；抛弃；丢弃·He ditched his girlfriend. 他把女朋友给甩了。2.[ VN V ] if a pilot ditches an aircraft, or if it ditches , it lands in the sea in an emergency 使（飞机）在海上紧急降落；（在海上）迫降

But there is also something much bigger at stake: climate change.

If cheaper, better batteries enable a rapid switch to electric vehicles, and give us renewable energy whatever the weather, then clearly they are going to be central to efforts to decarbonise our economy.

Astronauts blasting off into space are a lot more exciting than a grey box with a couple of wires attached.

blasting off 相当于blast-off ( of 宇宙飞船 ) to leave the ground 发射升空

Blast是一个含义很多的动词/名词，大家可以查查有道看一看。

But if that grey box helps us jettison fossil fuels, then the grey box wins in terms of its power to change our world.

jettison /ˈdʒetɪsn/ 1.to throw sth out of a moving plane or ship to make it lighter （为减轻重量而从行驶的飞机或船上）扔弃，丢弃，投弃  •to jettison fuel 投弃燃料  2.to get rid of sth/sb that you no longer need or want 摆脱；除掉；处理掉  3.to reject an idea, belief, plan, etc. that you no longer think is useful or likely to be successful 放弃，拒绝接受（想法、信念、计划等）

jettison和ditch有相似和不同之处。

Of course, you may disagree. And if you do, then please tell me why.