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What is inside an electric car battery?

There is so much talk going around about EV batteries and how materials need to be mined, but they are difficult to recycle, etc. I know they’re called lithium-ion, but what is actually inside an electric car battery?

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Marlee John · Updated on
Reviewed by Shannon Martin, Licensed Insurance Agent.
Great question! Electric car batteries, or lithium-ion batteries, are most often made up of an energy-dense chemical compound called Lithium-Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt-Oxide, or NMC. Tesla is looking at a cheaper, less-dense alternative as well: Lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP).
To simplify these are the chemicals that allow the battery to charge and discharge electrical energy and use it to power the car. Batteries are constructed of three different levels: packs, modules, and cells.
For a Nissan Leaf, one battery pack contains 40 battery modules and each battery module is made up of 8 cells. While the chemistry technology is the same for the most part, each car company will have a different configuration of battery modules.
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