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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Finer grained battery discharge boosts range [phys.org]:

Nissan Leafs, which go about 107 miles on a charge, sometimes end up relegated to commuter cars due to battery-life worries. The mass-market, standard Tesla Model 3 can go double that, but even that distance can be disconcerting on long road trips.

Both batteries could work about 50 percent longer with a device provisionally patented by Vanderbilt University's Ken Pence, professor of the practice of engineering management, and Tim Potteiger, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering. It reconfigures modules in electric car battery packs to be online or offline—depending on whether they're going to pull down the other modules.

The two used Tesla's open-source, high-density, lithium-ion battery to model their method of improving durability, adding a controller to each of the battery's cells.

"We know there are some battery cells that run out of juice earlier than others, and when they do, the others run less efficiently," Potteiger said. "We make sure they all run out of energy at the same time, and there's none left over."

Is a 50% boost in range worth the expense of the extra controllers?

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