GM's new soft-pack electric car battery goes 400 miles on a charge and is easy to stack.

Batteries can be a major sticking point in the transition to electric cars because of cost and range.

So-called soft batteries are encased in polymer instead of metal, making them more resilient, but also more costly.

General Motors claims it has a new electric car battery that could be a Tesla killer. "GM is building towards an all-electric future because we believe climate change is real," GM CEO Mary Barra said in a press presentation.

The range difference over Tesla is minimal—Tesla’s current range is 390 miles, while GM’s new battery has a “yeah, well, infinity plus one” range of 400 miles. But it’s different enough structurally that it will involve an entirely new manufacturing process, which GM says will also be cheaper.

The battery cell, called Ultium in GM’s documentation, is a flexible, soft, flat form factor that can be lined up (“like books on a shelf”) or stacked. Soft batteries aren’t new , but GM says previous ones have needed to be lined up only. Stackability gives even more flexibility to car makers who must fit a lot of cells, as elegantly as possible, into an irregular-shaped space.

GM’s design uses cobalt, which is cost prohibitive and mined in troubling ways . But the publicity team insists this is a tiny amount and that the overall manufacturing cost is still low and continuing to fall. Honestly, it kind of must be, because GM has made an unprecedented (among traditional auto manufacturers in the U.S.) push to go as electric as possible.

That includes releasing more and more new electric models of existing vehicles, more designs for new vehicles, and investing billions of dollars to convert the iconic Detroit Hamtramck factory into one that only makes electric vehicles. Calling these batteries “soft pack” is a little misleading, because they’re fairly rigid—they just have a polymer shell instead of a metal one.

This makes soft-pack batteries more flexible under strain , like when a metal casing might split under pressure. Soft batteries weigh as much as 40 percent less than equivalent metal batteries. The soft pack exterior is less conductive, meaning the battery holds less self-damaging heat. And manufacturers can have these batteries made in different sizes and form factors according to different needs. They’ve just been limited before now by a relatively high cost compared with traditional batteries.

GM says it plans to license its new battery technology to other automakers. Right now, Tesla is the metal-battery gorilla in electric vehicle sales, accounting for as much as 90 percent of sales. The lukewarm sales of the Chevy Volt and other all-electric vehicles have paled in comparison.

Could a lower cost and more innovative long-range battery finally begin to close Tesla’s huge industry lead? The answer might be just 400 miles away.

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