While chatting with industry analysts at the quarterly reporting conference, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his associates touched on the production of 4680 battery cells, which the company is making big bets on. It turned out that the Tesla Semi trucks now produced in small batches, contrary to expectations, do not use such battery cells yet.
Image Source: Tesla
As Elon Musk explained, in Texas, some of the Model Y crossovers assembled at the Austin plant, in which the traction battery is integrated into the power frame of the body, are equipped with 4680-type batteries. Such an electric vehicle is operated by senior vice president of the company Andrew Baglino (Andrew Baglino), he has already covered about 16,000 km on it without any problems from the traction battery.
According to Elon Musk, production volumes of 4680 cells are growing “exponentially”, but his colleague immediately added that there are still many problems in this area that have to be overcome. The head of the company did not directly answer the question of whether 4680-type batteries will be used in Cybertruck pickups, the production of which should start by the middle of next year, but he unequivocally stated that Semi electric trucks currently being assembled in Nevada do not use this type of batteries. The first customers, including PepsiCo, will begin receiving Tesla Semi electric trucks in December this year, and by 2024 the fleet of these vehicles in the United States could grow to 24,000 units.
Apparently, over time, all of the listed Tesla electric vehicles will switch to the use of 4680 type batteries, since earlier company representatives emphasized the optimality of their use on heavy equipment. Elon Musk expressed confidence that 4680 batteries will become the most competitive cells in the world in terms of their combination of qualities. For this, Tesla will optimize their manufacturing process at every stage, and even build a lithium processing facility in Texas, as discussed earlier at the rumor level. Over time, Musk is convinced that the company will be able to reduce the cost of storing 1 kWh of electricity in a traction battery to $70. If we take into account that the older Tesla models have a battery capacity approaching 100 kWh, then the cost of this component as a whole can be reduced to $7,000. More compact models can be content with even cheaper traction batteries. It is generally accepted that in modern mass-produced electric vehicles, the traction battery accounts for 30 to 50% of the cost.
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