The big killer 4680 battery, Tesla has to work hard for two years

2022-06-28

EV Vision Report] The 4680 battery, which Tesla has high hopes for, has previously been confirmed by the official announcement that it has successfully produced 1 million units in January. It may be used this year in the Model Y built by the new Texas factory. However, the supply of 4680 batteries, which is expected to increase the battery life of electric vehicles by about 20%, is not optimistic now, and Tesla can only produce it by itself in the short term.

One to five 4860

In September 2020, Tesla announced the development of a new size 4680 electrodeless ear battery at the Battery Day, with a height of 80mm and a diameter of 46mm.

Compared with traditional lithium batteries, electrodeless batteries no longer have raised tabs at both ends of the battery. This design can significantly reduce heat generation, solve the heat dissipation problem of high energy density cells, and increase the peak power of charge and discharge. Finally, the new battery has 5 times the energy and 6 times the power of the past, while reducing the cost by 14% and increasing the cruising range by 16%.

Tesla’s battery mass production target is to reach 100 GWh per year in 2022 and rapidly increase to 30,000 TWh per year in 2030. Tesla is currently focused on ramping up battery production, and the company currently has a pilot line of 4680 batteries at its Fremont, California factory.

Since its first publication, Tesla has not disclosed more detailed specifications of the 4680 battery. In response to the curiosity of the outside world, Troy Teslike, a Twitter celebrity who has been tracking Tesla news for a long time, recently revealed a lot of information.

At present, Tesla has mass-produced 4680 batteries. In fact, the power of a single battery is 98Wh. The single power of the old 2170 battery is 18.23Wh. Compared with the battery, the power has reached more than five times, which echoes the “five-fold increase in energy” claimed by Tesla on the battery day.

What is even more surprising is that Troy Teslike also said that the current 4680 battery is only the first generation, and it will continue to evolve next year and the year after, increasing the energy density to 108Wh and 118Wh. In other words, Tesla’s 4680 battery will increase by about 20% in the future.

The new battery has five times the energy, but don’t misunderstand that the Model Y will also have five times more power or battery life, because this means that one 4680 battery can be worth five 2170 batteries, so with the new battery, Tesla can Reduce the number of battery configurations and provide similar cruising range.

The Model Y long-range version on sale requires 4416 2170 batteries. When it is replaced with an integrated body structure with 4680 new batteries, the actual number of batteries required is between 800-840.

At present, Tesla’s push for the new 4680 battery has many advantages. The first thing is not to increase the battery life, but to integrate the battery pack into a part of the body through structural design, thereby reducing the production process of the chemical factory, and also helping To reduce body weight. As for the improvement in battery life, it may not be significantly improved until the second and third generation 4680 batteries appear.

4680 batteries are an important weapon for Tesla in the electric vehicle market. It is rumored that in order to ensure sufficient supply of 4680 batteries, Tesla is working hard to expand the lineup of supply partners, in addition to Panasonic and the rumored LG New Energy, Samsung SDI, and two A Chinese battery factory is also on the list.

In October 2021, Panasonic officially released its self-made 4680 battery, and said that it expected to start trial production in March this year, but did not disclose the time point of mass production. It is only speculated that Panasonic will give priority to the first batch of 4680 batteries in mass production in 2023. Supply to Tesla.

According to Panasonic’s official statement, it is currently building a new production facility at the Wakayama plant. In the future, two production lines will be added and structural transformation will continue. It is expected to start mass production for Tesla within the fiscal year ending in March 2024. 4680 battery. The annual production capacity of the production line has not yet been determined, but it is estimated to reach nearly 10 GWh, which is equivalent to supplying 150,000 electric vehicles, equivalent to nearly 20% of Panasonic’s overall production capacity. , and is also considering production in overseas factories such as the United States.

In other words, under the most conservative estimates, Panasonic will not be able to start supplying 4680 batteries to Tesla until March 2024, which is two years later, which may lead to Tesla electric vehicles equipped with 4680 batteries. That is to say, the Model Y produced by the Texas factory will be quite rare in the beginning.

Yuki Kusumi, the new CEO of Panasonic, recently revealed that as long as the Panasonic 4680 battery prototype production line is successfully tested, a large amount of investment will be made in the 4680 battery, hoping to increase the overall production as much as possible to create sufficient 4680 batteries and supply them to Tesla.

According to Korean media reports, both LG New Energy and Samsung SDI have completed preliminary sample development of the 4680 battery, and both companies are currently testing the 4680 battery to ensure compliance with Tesla’s standards, and have shared with Tesla. results.

LG New Energy plans to produce 4680-type batteries for Tesla from 2023, and is considering building factories in the United States and Europe. Samsung SDI has not yet given a clear schedule for the production of 4680-type batteries.

At present, Tesla can basically meet the battery demand with the supply of Panasonic, LG New Energy and CATL. However, Samsung SDI still has room to squeeze into Tesla’s battery supply chain. Samsung and Tesla have been cooperating in on-board chips and LED headlights for a long time. Recently, there is also news that the Cybertruck electric pickup will be equipped with Samsung’s camera lens module. Under such a close cooperation, Samsung will join the supply of 4680 batteries in the future. , should not be too surprising.

Regarding Chinese suppliers, 36Kr reported that Tesla is negotiating with Yiwei Lithium Energy, intending to make Yiwei Lithium Energy a supply partner of 4680 batteries. The cooperation is still in the early stage of negotiation. One of the possible follow-up cooperation methods will be special Sla is responsible for designing the battery, and Yiwei Lithium Energy produces it.

In addition to supplying a large number of lithium iron phosphate batteries to Tesla, CATL is also actively developing large cylindrical batteries. It is said that the name of the research and development project is called “Golden Hoop”, and 8 lines have been planned on the 4680 battery, with a total of 12 GWh.

There is also a Chinese battery factory, BAK Battery. Although it is not currently on the 4680 battery supply chain list that Tesla is negotiating, it is rumored that it has also taken the initiative to find Tesla, hoping to become a battery supply partner.

Tesla plans to use 4680 batteries in many new cars, including Model Y, Cybertruck, Semi, etc., all use this new battery design. Musk also mentioned that it will be the battery supply that will limit Tesla’s growth, so it makes sense to find more battery partners, but these rumors have not been responded to by Tesla or suppliers, and how things will develop is still full of variables.

A warm-up rhythm?

Not long ago, Tesla announced on a rare official account that it had successfully produced 1 million 4680 batteries in January. There was only this sentence, accompanied by photos of cheering and excited employees, and nothing else was said.

There are two major bottlenecks in the popularization of electric vehicles that need to be broken. One is cost and the other is battery life. Tesla’s new battery 4680 can meet both goals at the same time, which can be said to be the most critical growth variable in the next three years.

1 million sounds like a lot, but at present it is basically a drop in the bucket. At this stage, the first model equipped with 4680 batteries will be the Model Y. Assuming that Tesla does not change the total battery capacity of the Model Y, the Model Y that originally needs to use 4416 2170 battery cells will only need about 1,000 4680 battery cells, and the cost can be Decreased significantly.

However, after conversion, the 1 million 4680 cells currently produced are actually only enough for 1,000 Model Ys. Tesla produced nearly 300,000 Model 3s and Model Ys in California last year alone. A Model Y in the Shanghai Gigafactory can be completed in just 45 seconds.

Assuming that it is converted into a situation where all four Tesla factories are fully sprinting production capacity, it is estimated that 1 million Model Y can be produced, and all new batteries will require 1 billion 4680 cells. Now I know why there are so many 1 million battery cells. Insignificant, right?

Of course, this is only part of Tesla’s self-produced batteries in the California factory. As battery manufacturers such as Panasonic, LG New Energy, and CATL gradually participate in the 4680 production test, as well as the battery production lines of the two factories in Texas and Berlin, Tesla will move towards 100 GWh of production capacity step by step.

Source:The big killer 4680 battery, Tesla has to work hard for two years – iNEWS (inf.news)