Summary

Tesla's 4680 battery, while promising revolutionary advancements, has been found to lack several of its advertised features in its current form, leading to questions about Tesla's transparency and production capabilities.

Abstract

Tesla's 4680 battery, unveiled in September 2020, was anticipated to be a game-changer in the electric vehicle (EV) industry with its potential to reduce costs by 56%, improve power output, enhance safety, and provide quicker charging capabilities. However, recent teardowns reveal that the batteries currently in production lack the innovative features such as silicon anodes, cobalt-free cathodes, and dry-coated electrodes that were originally promised. Instead, they closely resemble the previous 2170 cells with a larger form factor and tabless design. Despite this, the 4680 battery still offers some advantages, such as a 33% cost reduction for the Model Y battery pack, due to its structural pack design and larger size. The absence of the advanced features has raised concerns about Tesla's production challenges and its communication with the public, suggesting a possible gap between expectations and reality.

Opinions

The author suggests that Tesla has not been fully transparent about the actual capabilities and technological advancements of the 4680 batteries currently in production.
There is a sentiment that Tesla may be using the anticipation and perceived innovation of the 4680 batteries as a marketing strategy, potentially misleading consumers into believing they are receiving a more advanced product.
The article implies that Tesla's struggle to implement cutting-edge technologies like dry-coated electrodes and silicon anodes is acceptable, but the lack of communication about these challenges is not.
The author expresses that while it is understandable for Tesla to incrementally introduce new battery technologies, the company should be more forthcoming about the status of these developments to avoid public disappointment and maintain trust.
The author points out that Tesla is not the only player in the EV battery market and that competitors like CATL, ONE, and Quantumscape are making significant progress, which could overshadow Tesla's achievements if the company does not address its production issues and transparency concerns.
There is a critical view of Tesla's overall corporate behavior, mentioning issues such as labor treatment and right-to-repair policies, which, combined with the battery situation, could tarnish Tesla's image as a leader in the EV industry.

Tesla’s New Battery Isn’t What They Said It Would Be

Has Tesla pulled a fast one on us?

In September 2020, Musk revealed to the market Tesla’s 4680 battery, and at face value, it looked like it would revolutionise the EV world. It promised to slash the cost per kWh by 56%, produce more power than its predecessor, come in a structural pack (increasing the crash safety of the car), be more resilient to supply chain issues, be better for the environment and even charge quicker. With such a battery, Tesla could finally offer their $25,000 EV, paving the way for the Cybertruck and second-generation Roadster to become a reality. Two years down the road, Tesla is only just starting to put 4680 packs into its cars, but recent teardowns have shown that something fishy is going on, as it seems Tesla might be pulling the wool over our eyes.

Before we get to this apparent trickery, we first need to understand how Tesla planned to make the 4680 reach such impressive specs.

You see, the 4680 has six unique and groundbreaking features that put it head and shoulders above the rest.

Firstly, its larger form factor allows each battery pack to use far fewer individual cells, as each cell has a much higher capacity. This, in turn, makes the production and assembly costs of the battery pack far cheaper. To enhance this cost saving, the cells aren’t in a bolt-down style pack like every other EV and instead are effectively set in a resin brick. This allows the battery pack to be used as a structural member of the car, increasing chassis strength, making the car handle better, and improving safety. But it is also far cheaper to assemble packs in this way, as the assembly itself contains far fewer steps.

The battery also had some significant internal changes. Rather than a graphite anode (the negative end of the battery), the 4680 uses a silicon one. Silicon can store far more lithium ions in it than graphite and poses less “resistance” to them. This makes silicon anode batteries like the 4680 far more energy dense and able to charge and discharge at much greater rates, which means shorter charge times and more available power for the car.

The battery chemistry is different too. Rather than the typical NMC 811 (80% nickel, 10% manganese, and 10% cobalt) cathode (the positive end of the battery), it would use a cobalt-free, high manganese, low nickel cathode. Because cobalt mining has a high environmental and humanitarian cost, and nickel prices can fluctuate wildly, this means the 4680 treads lighter on the planet and should have a more consistent and cheap cathode price. The electrodes (cathode and anode) are also dry-coated rather than the typical wet-coated. This speeds up production and makes it significantly less expensive.

Finally, the 4680 has a tabless design. Rather than having a small tab connecting the anode and cathode to the positive and negative terminals of the battery, like every other battery, it uses a wide folded flap on each end. You see, inside a cylindrical battery, the actual battery looks like a rolled-up bit of paper with little metal tabs sticking out the ends. The 4680, on the other hand, has a strip of metal on each end of the rolled up battery that is folded down after rolling to make a flat plate-like metal surface that connects to the terminals. This makes manufacturing cheaper by having fewer assembly steps and reduces the power bottleneck in the terminals, making ultra-fast charging and high-power outputs possible.

Tesla has already produced over a million 4680 batteries, and some US Model Y’s and Model 3’s are getting 4680 battery packs. But they are struggling to get 4680 production to ramp up. As of yet, Tesla can’t completely switch to this incredible battery. But at the very least, they are on the way to having the ultimate EV battery. Right?

Well, recent teardowns of these production 4680 batteries have revealed something worrying. They contain almost none of the groundbreaking features that Musk promised back in 2020.

These batteries do use the larger form factor and tabless design. After all, the form factor is where they get their name from (given they are 46mm wide and 80mm tall) and manufacturing the tabless design is easy. They also use the structural battery pack, but everything else is missing.

These teardowns showed that the anode material is graphite and the cathode material is NMC 811, meaning its internal chemistry is identical to its older 2170 cell. This means no superior charging speeds or higher energy density. It also means that this cell is still making use of environmentally damaging and humanitarian-troubling cobalt mining and remains vulnerable to nickel price rises. To make matters worse, the cell walls are three times thicker than a 2170 cell, further driving down energy density.

It is very hard to identify whether the electrode is dry coated or not, as both methods of coating do the same job, and the results look identical. But this method is the thing causing Tesla to struggle to ramp up production because it is a bottleneck. Each time they try to produce more cells, the quality of the dry coating drops, and only a few cells pass quality control, causing the cost per cell to rise dramatically. But if they can nail this tech, the cost per cell will plummet massively. It stands to reason that if the current 4680 cells were dry coated, Tesla would be making a big deal of it. So, in all likelihood, the current 4680 cells probably aren’t dry coated.

Far from being a groundbreaking, industry-shaking battery, it seems the present 4680 is just a bulky version of the batteries we already have…

Now don’t get me wrong, this larger form factor and structural pack system are giving Tesla a cost advantage. A 4680 pack for a Model Y costs Tesla $7,400, which is 33% cheaper than the equivalent 2170 pack. Yet, this is still a way off the target of 56% cheaper and without any upgrades in terms of energy density, range, performance, or charge speeds.

I, along with many other people, have thought that, at the very least, the current 4680 is more than just a larger cell. Tesla has been very sneaky by not being open about the nature of these 4680 cells. It almost feels like their silence is a tactic to make people think they are buying a car with a next-gen battery in it. When in reality, they aren’t.

But should we really be annoyed at Tesla for this? After all, things like silicon anodes, dry-coated electrodes, and cobalt-free cathodes are all on the bleeding edge of technology. Can we really expect Tesla to pack all of this into a battery and then produce it on a large scale at dirt cheap prices?

No, we shouldn’t. It makes sense for Musk to incrementally introduce these aspects into the battery production line. Start with the easy parts like the form factor, tabless design, and structural battery pack. Then start introducing the unique internal chemistry and finally start dry-coating. This way, each of these aspects’ production methods can be developed and refined before moving on to the next. Therefore, you create a robust, reliable, and efficient production line as quickly as possible.

What isn’t okay is the silence over what is actually happening with the 4680 development and production. The fact that these teardowns have unveiled this rather than Tesla themselves announcing how 4680 development and production is going is shameful. It leads to many thinking they are buying something that they aren’t. Moreover, this adds to the growing notion that Tesla is, behind the scenes, rather a shady and morally ambiguous company.

So yes, something fishy is happening at Tesla, and the incredible 4680 battery is still in production hell. I would be looking to get my act together if I were Musk. It isn’t just Tesla in the EV game anymore. Even if Tesla finally gets around to making a 4680 with all the promised specs, companies like CATL, ONE, and Quantumscape are all producing open-market batteries that have the potential to not only match but blow the 4680 out of the water. Any more delays and Tesla will start looking antiquated.

The rose-tinted glasses are also starting to slip. The public is becoming more aware of how Tesla treats its workforce, how they approach the right to repair, and now how questionable their PR is. If Tesla continues this way, it won’t be the golden boy of the EV world for much longer.