Tesla is reportedly having issues producing 4680 battery cells for the Cybertruck, but the report is a bit sketchy.
Today, Reuters released a report claiming that Tesla is having major issues with its 4680 battery cell production, and it is “one of the main bottlenecks” in making the Cybertruck:
Tesla’s Giga Texas factory is currently churning out 4680 battery cells at rate only sufficient to power about 24,000 Cybertrucks a year, or about a 10th of the required output, according to Reuters calculations based on a combination of public data and unpublished figures provided by sources.
Reuters has a history of negative misleading reports about Tesla, as we highlighted in a recent report, so we always take them with a grain of salt.
As for this one, regardless of battery cells, Tesla wouldn’t be producing the Cybertruck at a rate of 24,000 units per year at this point. Therefore, it would make sense to throttle the battery cell production to match its overall production capacity for the brand-new Cybertruck.
On the other hand, the report does claim that nine people told Reuters that Tesla is still having significant issues with its dry-coating technology for the 4680 cell:
The nine people, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Tesla had yet to crack dry-coating at the industrial scale needed to make 4680 batteries fast enough to hit its production targets.
Top comment by Preston
This is pretty well-established at this point. When the factory was built, the plan was to build Model Ys using 4680 cells with structural packs, but they've come out with a mix of 4680s and 2170s, with the majority being 2170s. I think they're only doing 2170s now in the Y to save the 4680s for Cybertrucks. Also, they've improved the 4680 chemistry to increase the power density from the ones previously used in the Model Y, so putting these in a Y would mean another new range variant.
The question isn't whether they're having trouble producing 4680s. The question is whether this is a fundamental problem with their process, or if they can find a clever solution to get it working at scale.
The report specifically claims that the issue is with dry coating the cathode. They added:
The sources said Tesla was struggling to mix the cathode materials, which include lithium, manganese and nickel, with a binder and stick them to a metallic foil to produce a cathode – without using moisture.
Tesla didn’t comment on the report, but Drew Baglino, Tesla’s SVP of engineering, did previously say that the automaker was able to ramp up battery production at two lines at Gigafactory Texas, and it plans to have eight lines by the end of 2024. The company will only deploy all lines once it can replicate the success of the first two lines consistently.
Electrek’s Take
I say “sketchy” because I seriously doubt 4680 is a major bottleneck in Cybertruck production right now. I think they just linked it to the pickup for clicks.
But there might be some validity to the claim that Tesla is still having issues with the dry coating technology. It’s worth keeping an eye on that, as 4680 cell production is critical to Tesla’s future EV programs.
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