Dry electrode 4680 cells rumored for Cybertruck in late 2024

[Mini2nut]

Interesting article regarding the 4680 cells used in the Cybertruck battery pack. Improvements are rumored to be coming soon...

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-mass-production-dry-electrode-4680-cells-end-of-2024-report/

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[TyPope]

Interesting article regarding the 4680 cells used in the Cybertruck battery pack.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-mass-production-dry-electrode-4680-cells-end-of-2024-report/

Thanks. Odd that the article says that Tesla can only produce enough 4680 cells to produce 1,000 Cybertrucks per week. Does that mean Tesla is working through a cell stock that was built up during Cybertruck ramp? Will Tesla slow the ramp now to match battery production? Will Tesla import batteries to make Cybertrucks? Is there a chance Tesla is already producing and installing the dry cells into customer vehicles and will unlock their potential later?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Mini2nut]

If 4680 battery cell improvements are truly on the horizon it's going to benefit reservation holders who are avoiding the first year of production due to bugs, running line part improvements, etc. The first adopters will be on the losing end.

 

[XCeilidhX]

If 4680 battery cell improvements are truly on the horizon it's going to benefit reservation holders who are avoiding the first year of production due to bugs, running line part improvements, etc. The first adopters will be on the losing end.

As early adopters nearly always are with everything.

I was with the Model S but still drive that car every day. It’s the price you pay for being among the first.

Cheers

 

[FlipSixThreeHole]

Expecting improved cells around the end of this year and a future further refinement down the road.

 

[bigmoose70]

Technology will always get better. The battery pack is fine for my current needs. I’ll just buy another truck in 8-10 yrs.

 

[SentinelOne]

if it's > 20% range improvement I'll use my 2nd reservation!

 

[ChristoN]

Munro did a CB tear down and also went into detail on the “cyber cell”, see link.

They think that the dry cathode process has already taken place. However, the Chinese article that the information was based on says that it isn’t optimized yet.

Here’s the translation from Claude Sonnet 3.5 if anyone is interested.


Here's the translation of the article:

**Text by Li Zinan**
**Edited by Cheng Manqi**

Tesla won't be launching new vehicle models for sale this year, but they might have a new battery.

We have exclusively learned that Tesla plans to mass-produce and install 4680 batteries using entirely dry electrode technology by the end of the year. This will be the "complete" version of the 4680 battery.

In 2023, Tesla already used 4680 batteries in the Cybertruck, but that was a compromised version that didn't achieve the goal of reinventing the battery manufacturing process by using dry electrodes to replace traditional wet electrodes, thereby eliminating the process of wetting and then drying the electrodes, speeding up production and reducing costs. Currently, Tesla's 4680 batteries only use dry electrode technology for the lower-cost anode, while the more expensive cathode is still sourced from LG Energy Solution and two Chinese battery companies using traditional wet cathode technology.

Now, Tesla is just one step away from the "complete" 4680 battery. We understand that the design of the 4680 battery with dry cathodes has recently been finalized, which is the step before large-scale production. Tesla's battery department will now focus on improving production yield and efficiency, and expanding capacity.

According to our information, Tesla had already produced dry cathode electrode rolls in the laboratory by the end of 2022, but due to technical misjudgments, they were unable to mass-produce them. After the project leader, Drew Baglino, left in April this year, Tesla adjusted its technical approach, and breakthrough in dry cathode mass production was achieved.

"Making dry electrodes can change Tesla," said a Tesla-related person.

The 4680 battery is Tesla's self-developed battery announced in 2020. Tesla claimed at the time that the new technology could reduce battery costs by 50%, leading to cheaper new cars.

The key to significant cost reduction is the dry electrode process. The current power battery's positive and negative electrode materials are in a slurry state, known as "wet electrodes," which requires drying and solvent recovery processes in battery production, taking a long time and requiring large factory floor space. Dry electrodes eliminate these processes, greatly reducing plant footprint and capital investment per unit of battery capacity, while improving battery performance and production efficiency.

The dry cathode is the most important and challenging part of the entire 4680 process, and cathode materials are also the most expensive component in the battery, accounting for over 35% of the cost.

We have also learned that while overcoming the dry electrode challenge, Tesla is continuing to improve the packaging process and material ratio of the current compromised version of the 4680 battery. These batteries will be prioritized for the Cybertruck. Currently, Tesla's self-produced 4680 batteries have a weekly capacity sufficient for only 1,000 Cybertrucks.

Informed sources say that among the material suppliers for these 4680 batteries Tesla is producing in the U.S., there are almost no Chinese companies left. Some of their production equipment has also been switched to Japanese, European, and American companies, and they are seeking alternative solutions for processes still using Chinese equipment.

On the other hand, Tesla also plans to have LG Energy Solution directly supply complete wet cathode 4680 batteries in the second half of this year. These batteries will be installed in Model Y vehicles produced in the U.S.

The 4680 battery is core to Tesla's efforts to enhance the competitiveness of its next-generation products, and the dry cathode is the core of the 4680. Since the project's inception, Tesla has spent 5 years on it.

**Past the R&D hurdle, now mainly engineering optimization issues**

A simple rule for success in manufacturing is to make better things than competitors with less money.

Over the past 5 years, Tesla had a clear cost reduction and efficiency improvement path: using larger integrated casting machines to shorten body manufacturing time, designing next-generation cars with fewer parts that are easier to manufacture, using dry electrode technology to compress battery manufacturing costs, using "unboxed" technology to reduce vehicle assembly time and costs, and building more efficient Gigafactories.

Tesla has invested billions of dollars and significant engineering resources in these hardware and manufacturing innovations. If the plan is realized, Tesla would maintain industry-leading gross margins and operational efficiency as it did 3 years ago.

However, since April this year, Tesla has begun to pause these efforts: suspending the manufacture of the $25,000 budget car model, halting research on larger integrated cast bodies, and the next-generation Gigafactory in Mexico, which was supposed to start production this year, has yet to begin construction.

The 4680 battery also once seemed to be in imminent danger. In April this year, the project leader, Drew Baglino, Tesla's Senior Vice President of Powertrain and Energy Engineering who had worked at Tesla for 17 years, resigned. The battery team was also cut by about 25% that month, now with fewer than 800 people remaining.

We followed up on the layoffs and mentioned that at the beginning of this year, Tesla management had set clear assessment targets for the battery department: if by the end of this year, the cost of Tesla's self-produced 4680 batteries is not lower than that of suppliers like LG Energy Solution and Panasonic, Tesla would consider abandoning self-production of 4680 batteries. This is not a low standard goal; if Tesla can truly achieve self-production costs lower than LG, this would be the cheapest battery produced on U.S. soil.

The recent progress in dry cathodes has given the battery department a chance to achieve the year-end goal.

After Baglino's departure, Tesla's battery team decided to take a slightly higher cost route that could be mass-produced faster.

Before this, Tesla's engineering team had already made dry cathode electrode rolls in the laboratory by the end of 2022, with the next step being to replicate this on the production line.

**The current general process for power battery production is to coat paste-like positive and negative electrode materials onto foils to make electrode sheets, then roll them into electrode rolls, place them in battery cases, inject electrolyte, and complete welding.**

However, when mass-producing electrode rolls, Tesla was stumped by the calendering process. "The dry cathode process encountered major challenges. The cathode powder is very hard and sometimes damages the electrode equipment, which we didn't anticipate," Musk said during the 2022 earnings call.

An engineer who previously worked in Tesla's battery department said that Tesla only had a small number of customized and well-tuned dry cathode calendering equipment. Each time this equipment broke down, it took at least 45 days to repair, causing the battery team to waste a lot of time.

He recalled that when Baglino was still in office, he had to face weekly interrogations from Tesla's former CFO Zach Kirkhorn, "On the cost bar chart, only the cell department was pulling to the top, while all other departments were at the bottom."

There were discussions within the battery department about leaving some of the engineering challenges encountered with dry electrodes to be solved after the calendering and winding processes, as there was less room for modification and optimization of the calendering equipment.

This person said that if they did this, things would be much simpler. Japanese equipment companies have mature solutions, but Tesla would need to replace some production equipment, involving more equipment expenditure and other R&D uncertainties. This proposal had not previously been approved by Tesla's senior management.

Recently, Tesla's battery department began to try this previously unapproved plan, switching to another set of equipment to solve electrode roll yield problems after calendering and winding, and has made progress.

A person close to Tesla said that the reason for the recent increase in confidence in the battery department is that they believe they have now passed the most difficult stage of R&D, and the main issues going forward are engineering optimization.

Tesla can improve efficiency through some detailed improvements. As one Tesla insider mentioned, when defective electrode sheets appeared on the production line before, ordinary battery companies would only cut off tens of centimeters of waste, but Tesla would cut off meters of electrode sheets. This resulted in Tesla having to bear higher defective product losses when producing batteries, and it was also more difficult to accurately locate problems.

"This is mainly because we don't have enough engineering staff to do testing," he said. But fortunately, these tasks can now be improved by having more basic technical personnel do more testing, "The route is clearer now, and it can be solved with time."

**Tesla is expected to produce some batteries in-house, reducing dependence on external battery suppliers**

Before the 4680 battery, Tesla had never fully produced batteries in-house. Tesla's initial batch of mass-produced cylindrical batteries was produced in cooperation with Panasonic. By 2020, Tesla, which was already selling 500,000 cars a year, had formed a relatively stable battery supply pattern:

All prismatic batteries were supplied by CATL, mainly used for standard range versions of Model 3 and Model Y. CATL supplied not only the Shanghai factory but also exported to Tesla's U.S. factories. Cylindrical batteries came from Panasonic and LG, used for long-range versions and high-end models.

Since Tesla began in-house production of 4680 batteries in 2023, it has changed its battery supply chain, reducing dependence on external suppliers, including Chinese suppliers.

The "compromised version" of 4680 currently in mass production at Tesla's Texas factory uses wet cathodes from LG and two Chinese companies, as well as Tesla's own dry anodes.

If the dry electrode 4680 battery is successfully mass-produced and achieves a high yield rate, Tesla will be able to fully produce 4680 batteries in-house, no longer relying on suppliers to produce core components.

External suppliers will lose some of Tesla's incremental orders. In Musk's optimistic vision in 2021, Tesla would produce at least 30% of its car batteries in-house in the future.

As Tesla begins to produce more batteries on its own, another opportunity for Chinese industry chain companies is to provide equipment. However, according to our understanding, Tesla has not yet contacted Chinese equipment manufacturers for core processes such as coating, calendering, and winding of dry cathodes. The core suppliers come from Japan and Germany.

However, whether Tesla's dry cathode 4680 can maintain cost leadership remains uncertain.

This depends on the speed of yield improvement and expansion of dry cathode 4680 production. If the yield is too low, it will offset the benefits of reducing production steps such as drying.

At the same time, since Tesla proposed the 4680 solution in 2020, many other companies in the industry have followed suit, such as LG Energy Solution, EVE Energy, and Panasonic. Although CATL is not optimistic about the 4680 route, they also have technical reserves and are researching dry electrodes. Even if they are a bit late, when other companies can also mass-produce dry electrode 4680 batteries, Tesla will face a new round of manufacturing efficiency competition. When companies are at the same generation of technology, extreme cost compression is not Tesla's forte.

CATL and other manufacturers are also exploring the next generation of batteries, namely all-solid-state batteries, which also require dry electrodes. The industry consensus is that solid-state batteries are the best form for automotive batteries.

While conquering the dry cathode 4680, Tesla is also deepening cooperation with Chinese companies such as CATL. CATL began co-building a lithium iron phosphate battery factory for energy storage with Tesla in Nevada earlier this year. Tesla purchases ready-made battery production lines from CATL, while CATL provides some technical and procurement support, earning technology licensing fees.

CATL and BYD currently have battery costs of about 0.33 yuan/Wh, still the cheapest and most cost-effective batteries globally.

**Cover image source: Tesla X account**

- END -

 

[CyberPappy]

Explain like I’m 5…

Is this new battery/process supposed to primarily improve cost efficiency or battery efficiency?

 

[dotat]

Explain like I’m 5…

Is this new battery/process supposed to primarily improve cost efficiency or battery efficiency?

I skimmed it and only saw notes of cost reduction.

 

[mongo]

Explain like I’m 5…

Is this new battery/process supposed to primarily improve cost efficiency or battery efficiency?

Primarily manufacturing (factory CapEx and processing), however there are studies that show the solvent used in wet electrode processes can cause degradation. So dry may produce a better cell.

 

[CyberPappy]

Primarily manufacturing (factory CapEx and processing), however there are studies that show the solvent used in wet electrode processes can cause degradation. So dry may produce a better cell.

So more that it helps with battery longevity (life span) rather than a significant difference in efficiency (range in this case)?

 

[mongo]

So more that it helps with battery longevity (life span) rather than a significant difference in efficiency (range in this case)?

Yeah, as I recall, it was more lifetime than energy density.

 

[RM Rilke]

This is interesting and leads to bit of speculation. I’m taking shots in the twilight here and I’m happy to be corrected. The current price structure of the FS appears to be somewhat dependent on the higher cost and lower availability/slower production into finished cells of the wet imported cathode. That higher FS cost at a limited production rate may also be partly supported by the percentage of non domestic materials in the batteries preventing Tesla from taking advantage of the tax credit at 80k. When they optimize production at the lower cost they want to take advantage of the 80k price target to increase demand in line with potential cost benefits of scaling other aspects of production. This all lines up with the late 2024 elimination of the FS. Just my musings.

 

[Jason B]

Any new updates on this???

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