The chief technology officer of U.S. electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors forecast significant strides in the development of lithium-ion batteries over the next five to 10 years, as he eyed increased demand for electric batteries tailored for cars.

“When we look forward to 2020, we think we will have around 1 million electric cars in total on the road that will amass about 70 gigawatt hours of total energy storage,” said JB Straubel, the CTO and cofounder of Tesla, during the 2015 Seoul Digital Forum on Wednesday.

Though 1 million cars is only a small percentage of the roughly 100 million new cars manufactured globally every year, Straubel emphasized that “70 GWh is a huge figure relative to current battery consumption” levels.


The CTO expects that the demand for car batteries able to store large amounts of energy will spike significantly, fostering a new direction of growth in a market currently focused on developing batteries mainly suited to electronics such as laptops and cellphones.

“We’re going to see a shift in the next 10 years where new technology and applications (will) drive growth in a way that consumer electronics never could,” he said.

Tesla is the world’s leading electric automobile company founded in 2003 by Silicon Valley engineers who ― in a move to steer away from fossil fuel use in vehicles ― decided to take batteries used in electronics and adapt them to automobiles.

The automaker is also jumping on the next-generation battery development business by building its own factory to supply enough batteries to support its projected vehicle demands.

Tesla’s Gigafactory is set to begin cell production in 2017 and reach full capacity in 2020 to produce 35 GWh of energy ― the equivalent to the entire world’s cell production in 2013.

“(We are looking) at how we can improve batteries, build them much more cost effectively and use this scale to drive down prices faster,” Straubel said.

Meanwhile, Tesla recently expanded its business portfolio to launch Powerwall ― a new solar-powered battery developed for installation inside homes and large utilities.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)