'Game-changing' electric car batteries could push 1000km driving range and cut EV prices massively: Is Stellantis, owner of Ram, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Peugeot, Citroen and Maserati, onto something big?

Claims of battery breakthroughs have lately been reserved for Chinese electric car brands, but this time the news has come from automotive megagroup Stellantis.

Despite its recent misfortunes on the sales and revenue charts, Stellantis is betting big on what it is calling a new breed of “game-changing” lithium-sulphur batteries, developed through a new partnership with American battery company Zeta Energy.

According to a joint statement, the battery technology has the potential to deliver huge gains in energy density and usability, while slashing the cost of EVs compared to those fitted with conventional ternary lithium-ion batteries.

As an inexpensive and widely-available non-metallic element, sulphur-based cathodes replace the need for precious metals such as cobalt, manganese, graphite and nickel in the production process, which Stellantis is already claiming will reduce the overall cost per kWh by up to half.

Zeta Energy’s batteries instead use unrefined sulphur and methane, chemical byproducts from various industries, which it says significantly lowers carbon emissions and has the potential to create circular supply chains in Europe and North America.

Energy density on a lithium-sulphur battery is claimed to be as much as three-times that of a lithium-ion battery, according to Zeta Energy, while weighing in at approximately half the size, meaning range, handling and drivability could all be set to improve significantly.

We could see electric car driving ranges spike beyond 1000km, if Zeta Energy's claims are true.

Charging speeds are also said to increase by up to 50 per cent.

Self-discharge – the amount of energy lost from a battery in an idle state – is claimed to be as low as less than five per cent of the battery volume over five years, which could also potentially shore up long-term EV resale value.

Stellantis said it is already working with Zeta Energy on pre-production batteries before large-scale manufacturing takes place, with the aim to deliver the technology in electric cars by 2030.

A decent chunk of the 75 affordable electric cars Stellantis plans to build by 2038 could feature the technology, which will include EVs from big names brands such as Ram, Jeep, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and Peugeot.