The gaming-changing product from Tesla, 4680 battery cells are one of the most awaited new development from Tesla fans. Till last year it was known that Tesla developed the production yield to 20%, which is now known to have risen to 70-80%. It is a battery that can change the industry with dry electrodes and at an optimal price and availability.
The information is not official because the news comes from a Tesla investor and host of Youtube’s Hypercharge channel. Galileo Russell suggests that Tesla is about to hit a breakthrough. Says that the production yield of 4680 battery cells has increased. Meaning lesser issues are observed with the battery with recent developments. Also, Tesla’s pilot battery line seems to be doing better, close to acceptable production yields.
Though the delay in production seems to have affected their production line of other vehicles like Cybertruck. The issue was presented during the Q2 2021 earnings call. Musk mentioned the production line delay and the process when the dry electrode is smashed when it is bought from a particular height. Such challenges occurred partly due to using nickel in the battery cells. Nickel being extremely hard, add dents to the calendar rolls. However, during the conference, Tesla Senior Vice President of Powertrain and Energy Engineering Drew Baglino mentioned that the issue was more engineering and not a science issue.
A breakthrough is coming
Yet, Russell points out the Tesla is close enough to breakthrough currently. This is one of those situations when Tesla actually comes close with the dates said by Elon Musk. It is expected that by the time Giga Berlin manufacturing production starts, the 4680 battery cells can be ready, and be sent to Germany for the vehicles manufactured there. Upcoming Giga Texas is also going to be part of the 4680 battery cell production.
Last month Tesla announced its updates as,
“We have successfully validated the performance and lifetime of our 4680 cells produced at our Kato facility in California. We are nearing the end of manufacturing validation at Kato: field quality and yield are at viable levels and our focus is now on improving the 10% of manufacturing processes that currently bottleneck production output. While substantial progress has been made, we still have work ahead of us before we can achieve volume production.”
Elon Musk predicted in April that the value production will start in a year, else by May 2022 at most. As the production yield is known to have reached 70-80%, clearly their developments are going as planned.
