4680 production progress

[dempster]

Yes though they wouldn’t need to ‘reproduce exactly’

happens all the time that Company A purchased Company B, then Company A carved out of Company B the parts of the business of value to Company A.

What remains of Company B is then packaged up for on-sale

reminds me of them hiring those bang & olufsen engineers for the audio system

Sponsored

 

[RVAC]

The article does only mention Giga Texas. Kato Rd also has been ramping up production. I wonder what their production rate is up to now?

Supposedly the Kato Rd facility is offline for upgrades, unless it stopped production before June 16th it will have contributed to the 10M cells produced between then and now. To what degree is hard to say.

Yes though they wouldn’t need to ‘reproduce exactly’

happens all the time that Company A purchased Company B, then Company A carved out of Company B the parts of the business of value to Company A.

What remains of Company B is then packaged up for on-sale

They did the same with Maxwell.

 

[cvalue13]

Supposedly the Kato Rd facility is offline for upgrades, unless it stopped production before June 16th it will have contributed to the 10M cells produced between then and now. To what degree is hard to say.

these reports are for GFTX production, not total Tesla production

 

[RVAC]

these reports are for GFTX production, not total Tesla production

I'm reading it as the 20 millionth cell was produced at GFTX, not that GFTX has produced 20 million cells. Hopefully they'll clarify on the call, along with how many lines are currently operational at GFTX.

 

[TyPope]

GigaTexas took 15 months to go from 1M 4680 cells to 10M 4680 cells and then 4 months to go from 10M to 20M. If my mental math is acute, we'll see the 30M mark in November and the 40M mark in December. And then, well, then, it's game on!

 

[cvalue13]

I'm reading it as the 20 millionth cell was produced at GFTX, not that GFTX has produced 20 million cells. Hopefully they'll clarify on the call, along with how many lines are currently operational at GFTX.

If so, that seem pretty confusing, if not misleading





But this older tweet (Dec 2022) shows photo of both Kato and Texas, and calls it the 4680 team to capture both cites



This even earlier milestone tweet (Feb 2022) meanwhile



Meanwhile, it would suggest that all these similarly worded tweets about vehicle milestones would be subject to a similar interpretation



None of which is to say you’re incorrect, but instead to say that if you're right it would seem pretty misleading thing for Tesla to do

If they built a million cells in Kato by Feb 2022, then not until June 2023 announce that they’d built 10M between both GFTX and Kato, would mean an average of only ~500k/mo (over 17mo) or 125k/wk between both factories

no wonder Tesla quietly scrapped the GFTX Model Y with 4680s

 

[cvalue13]

I’d not be surprised to find that GTX cells are basically dedicated to the CT (and Y) whereas Kato is for the Semi

correction: apparently GFTX is no longer making 4680 MYs

 

[swengl]

Judging from the videos from Joe of the GTX site, the battery cathode plant and the other buildings around it are still under construction. I would anticipate that once those buildings are in full swing, we will see a dramatic change in the lead times for the battery components, which should translate directly into more 4860 units/hour.

 

[cvalue13]

Seemed relevant:

 

[Crissa]

Judging from the videos from Joe of the GTX site, the battery cathode plant and the other buildings around it are still under construction. I would anticipate that once those buildings are in full swing, we will see a dramatic change in the lead times for the battery components, which should translate directly into more 4860 units/hour.

Yes and no.

I think it relates more to the volume of cells they'll be able to produce, not limited by the amount of supplies they can buy on the open market.

-Crissa

 

[RVAC]

If so, that seem pretty confusing, if not misleading





But this older tweet (Dec 2022) shows photo of both Kato and Texas, and calls it the 4680 team to capture both cites



This even earlier milestone tweet (Feb 2022) meanwhile



Meanwhile, it would suggest that all these similarly worded tweets about vehicle milestones would be subject to a similar interpretation



None of which is to say you’re incorrect, but instead to say that if you're right it would seem pretty misleading thing for Tesla to do

You make a compelling case, I tend to default to the cynical interpretation but looks like it's not warranted here.

The missing part of the puzzle is how many lines were active in producing these 10M 4680 cells over four months. If it's all from a single line that would be great news as it means they are at a potential ~12GWh/yr output at GFTX (~100k/yr dual motor CT), if from multiple lines less so.

If they built a million cells in Kato by Feb 2022, then not until June 2023 announce that they’d built 10M between both GFTX and Kato, would mean an average of only ~500k/mo (over 17mo) or 125k/wk between both factories

no wonder Tesla quietly scrapped the GFTX Model Y with 4680s

Yes, but not quite as cut and dry. GFTX only started producing 4680 cells in the second half of 2022, as far as I'm aware, and Kato Rd is also the R&D facility, so will have had a good amount of downtime for said reason.

 

[cvalue13]

You make a compelling case, I tend to default to the cynical interpretation but looks like it's not warranted here.

you’d just about convinced me in *your* direction!

 

[JBee]

Seemed relevant:

​

I thought I might as well put my quick calculation of how many cells are in those racks in the video:

4680 Cell Storage GT		#	Cells	kWh
Cells in Slab		10	100	9
Slabs in Stack		9	900	81
Stacks in slot		2	1,800	162
Stacks per shelf		4	7,200	648
Shelves High		16	115,200	10,368
Shelves Units Long		7	806,400	72,576
# of Shelves		12	9,676,800	870,912

So that storage area has enough shelving to store around 10million cells or around 900MWh, which is enough for around 7000pcs of 120kWh Cybertrucks.

That's if the whole area is full, which is hard to tell, but there also might be more areas. Note in that video each shelf is only about 3-4ft high (1m), so the scale is off a bit visually, until you see that picker with the had rail pulls up in the beginning.

It's possible there are some 7-12,000 CT's worth of batteries stockpiled., which would obviously be used to offset the CT production ramp versus the battery ramp, meaning the battery ramp can actually be slower than the CT production ramp. At least for 3-4 months, by which time hopefully there will be some more battery factories online, and each individually be able to ramp even faster because of lessons learned.

 

[Crissa]

Tesla said they're aiming for 100GWh/year.

And The Limiting Factor and others have estimated 4680 production is currently at 5GWh/year.

-Crissa

Sponsored