John Goodenough
MEET THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE
CATHODE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD.BY JOHN PEARLEY HUFFMAN
50 APRIL 2020 ~ CAR AND DRIVER
PHOTOGRAPHBYHENRIK^ MONTGOMERY/GETTYIMAGESIn 1980, at the University of
Oxford, John B. Goodenough
developed the lithium-cobalt-
oxide cathode that enabled the
widespread use of lithium-ion
(LI) batteries. Today, LI batteries
power products ranging from
the MacBook Pro to the Tesla
Model 3. If it weren’t for Good-
enough’s insight, the electrifi-
cation of the automobile as we
know it may not have happened.
And Elon Musk might be only
vaguely known as that guy who
had something or other to do
with processing eBay payments.
The lithium-cobalt-oxide
cathode is the positive side of
the LI battery. Its use stabilizes
the battery so it can withstand
discharging and recharging with
low risk of developing surface
fractures, which can result in
short circuits or, worse, fires.
Goodenough’s cathode essen-
tially turned the LI battery into
a viable commercial product.
It’s an idea worth billions, but
Oxford didn’t patent it, and
Goodenough signed the rights
over to the U.K.’s Atomic Energy
Research Establishment.
Last year, explaining why he
undertook the research, Good-
enough told the University of
Chicago Magazine, “I just knew
it was something I should do.”
Since then, Goodenough has fur-
ther refined his ideas and devel-
oped lithium-manganese-oxide
and lithium-iron-phosphatecathodes. The former are found
in many electric cars, whereas
the latter are widely used in
power tools.
In 2019, Goodenough,
Japan’s Akira Yoshino, and
Britain’s M. Stanley Whitting-
ham were awarded the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry for their
work developing the LI battery.
Whittingham invented the first
rechargeable LI battery while
Yoshino added a carbon-
based anode (the negative side)
to further increase the LI
battery’s stability.
At age 97, Goodenough
became the oldest person
to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
Now 40 years removed from
that first breakthrough, Good-
enough continues his research.
Most days, he can be found in
his office at the University of
Texas in Austin’s mechanical
engineering department. He’s
working on a prototype of a
solid-state battery that, if it
works as expected, will hold a
significant practical advantage
over internal combustion. “One
of the things that’s important in
the society is to wean ourselves
from our dependence on fossil
fuels,” Goodenough told the
New York Times in 2017. “And if
we could make an electric car
that would be as convenient
and as cheap as an internal-
combustion engine, we’d get
CO 2 emissions off the road.”Tesla Superchargers
EXPERIENCE THE NETWORK EFFECT
What good is a car if you can’t easily drive
it considerable distances? In 1932 , with the
ambition of making that question obsolete,
General Motors president Alfred P. Sloan
formed a powerful lobby to ensure that a
national system of highways got built. By
doing that, Sloan helped create what econ-
omists call an indirect network effect. The
presence of a nationwide road system made
cars more valuable and more desirable than
they would have been without it.
It’s the same reason why, beginning
in 2012 , Tesla built a web of Supercharger
stations as it launched the Model S. Without
these DC fast chargers (which cost about
$300,000 a pop), Tesla’s growth could not
have happened. Neatly forgetting its own
history, GM (along with other automakers)
has relied on the plodding build-out by third
parties such as ChargePoint and EVgo.
As of mid-January, Tesla had 1 5,5 25
Superchargers in 1770 locations worldwide,
754 of them in the U.S. That’s more than
half the total public DC fast chargers in the
country, which, combined with the impressive
range of Tesla’s three models, make possible
long-distance and even cross-country trips.
Tesla claims its network covers 99 percent
of the U.S. population. That may be true geo-
graphically, but if the entire fleet switched to
Teslas overnight, there certainly wouldn’t be
enough plugs to go around.
Not only has Tesla continued to expand its
network, it has also improved it: Employing
a liquid-cooled cable in its latest unit, Tesla
more than doubled the peak charge rate,
to 250 kilowatts. But these V3 stations, as
they’re known, are still few and far between.
The other thing Tesla got spectacularly
right is the seamlessness with which its
Superchargers operate. You simply plug
in. There’s no fumbling with credit cards or
phone apps like many third-party outlets
require. Like the highway system, it’s a
simple bet: Make something easy to use and
people will use it. —Dave VanderWerp