As a useless, retired, old Industrial Design Engineer, I see the problem is the dry binder. It maintains its mass and volume in the mix, thus displacing anode/cathode particles, reducing particle film density and making the film too thick. The solvent based system evaporated and reduced thickness while keeping the desired density. Either solvent base to maximize performance or reduce/replace solid binder with one that requires less volume in the mix, thus increasing particle density and cell performance. Committing to a production technology/technique before having a solution to these issues isn't an efficient process and these things were likely known, or SHOULD have been, prior to the massive commitment of resources toward this method of production. Like a said, I'm an old, useless, retired Industrial Design Engineer and these are simply musings of my observations.

@jimgraham6722

9 ай бұрын

Perhaps, but in my view spirally winding the batteries is the mistake. The cylindrical format is a legacy hanging over from C cells, D cells etc. They were weren't spirally wound they were bulk filled. For EVs the blade cell configuration makes much better sense and only requires 126 cells to make an EV battery pack, vs thousands for comparable cylindrical cells.

@pauld3327

9 ай бұрын

​@@jimgraham6722Agreed.

@kerryscott3287

9 ай бұрын

Powder coat paints are thinner and more evenly applied than solvent based systems, likely similar to the application of the battery dry application. They may have a mixing problem. They need to use pseudo cavitation mixing.

@AudiTTQuattro2003

9 ай бұрын

​@@jimgraham6722...I believe the can design was initially done for structural/puncture resistance reasons because this chemistry is more prone to thermal runaway. LFP batteries are looking like the way to go instead.

@hitreset0291

9 ай бұрын

Thank you for your service ~ now please go and enjoy your retirement.

I spent my life in manufacturing. Manufacturing is hard. Making millions of anything is very hard. They will get it.

@davidbeppler3032

9 ай бұрын

Yep, only 3 years into an new production. These things take time.

@mefobills279

9 ай бұрын

R and D and prototyping is hard. The design impacts manufacturing. Once manufacturing is set up, turn the crank. But getting set up can be hard.

@shadowcaster111

9 ай бұрын

@@mefobills279 Till something breaks. once running you have so much that can and will go wrong. If its not the customers, its the vendors. and then its the employees. Every day its a new issue. Keeping high speed manufacturing running is its own challenge.

Finally someone realistic reporting on Tesla. -subscribed, ALL

@rcpmac

9 ай бұрын

Yes, my first thumbs up for a Tesla fanboy channel.

Great video! I’ve been seeking to understand the challenge with a dry electrode process for months. Thanks!

2:25 Range is most certainly CRITICAL

That small price difference allows Tesla Y buyers to squeak under the $50k limit of many state EV incentives. The price they sell these cars at is determined by demand, not the cost of the battery cells

Great explanation. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the update.

So many fans here blindly overprotecting Tesla which i too driving Model 3. Good to hear they are struggling sometimes like everyone else 😊 Nice work on the news and content you made 👍

Thank You for showing , some of the problems

Nice explanation. I was able to follow and understand it.

Very well done. Thank you

Really great video. Do you have sources inside Tesla?

Right now I'd put my money on CATL winning the energy density race but it will be an interesting contest.

How do you speculate the production costs solely from the price of model y?

Another great educational video.

Thanks for good stuff.

Very nice information Good wark you Good video

Great work! 👍🏻🙏🏻❤️

Nice work.

Excellent content! I usually find massive errors in this kind of content, fantastic work factual and accurate

@fjanson2468

9 ай бұрын

Other than its almost entirely speculation about where the problems are.

@Monkeyheadtpc

7 ай бұрын

100 GWh x 300 = 3000 GWh?

What a visually pleasant, interesting, and instructive video! Bravo!! 😊👍

The range difference on a day to day use is not so stark because you charge the iron battery to 100% and the other to 80%.

The slightly lower cost is that way is simply to slow consumption of them to a rate they can keep up with. That's the entire basis of their pricing, it's whatever price they have to set in order to keep their production lines running at capacity. Demand goes up? Raise prices to adjust consumption.

@seanxmurray

9 ай бұрын

Yes, this exactly. Also, the idea in the video that doubling a cars range should double the price totally ignores all the fixed non-battery costs that go into a vehicle.

@leovang3425

8 ай бұрын

​​@@seanxmurray true but as a consumer you'll see a 6% difference in price for a 20% difference in travel which is the main differentiating feature between the 2 options.

@AnimeHumanCoherence

7 ай бұрын

This ignores consumer price sensitivity. Raise prices 10%? Sure, you can always do that. But if that crashes your sales volume, it may not be wise. Especially considering that, price per mile/range is clearly worse in it's current state...

Just wondering is it possible to plasma coat the cathode instead of using the old Xerox copier toner technique?

Where did you find this Process Video/knowledge??

LiCAP Technologies in Sacramento, CA (originally based out of China I think?) Has this dry electrode coating as well. They mainly make capacitors but the process can be applied to batteries which I believe they are doing.

Good video !!!

Thank you for an accurate critique of the issue and not another fanboy post. No doubt Tesla will figure out a battery solutuon for the "Model 2" within the next few years.

8:25 don’t you have your anode and cathode polarity backwards?

My big issue with this video is that he is making assumptions on sticker price of the modely variant with the cost of the battery. Which is rediculous.

6:22 shouldn't that be 30x? (100GWh to 3TWh)

LFP cells have improved dramatically since 4680 was announced. Cold weather performance and weight issues have been solved. So why not make LFP in 4680 format.

@jimgraham6722

9 ай бұрын

Because the blade configuration is both cheaper to make and has better performance. Globally many Tesla's are fitted with blade batteries.

@pauld3327

9 ай бұрын

​@@jimgraham6722I think Tesla uses more LFP batteries from CATL than from BYD

@jimgraham6722

9 ай бұрын

@@pauld3327 Not sure. I know they do use BYD blade cells including in some vehicles made in Germany. It is difficult however, to know the status as even owners (I am one) don't know exactly what cells are in their Model 3s. I know mine has LFP batteries but don't know whether they are BYD blades, CATLs or something else. My Atto in the other hand has the exact battery specification in the owners manual spec sheet as follows, Man Traction Battery: 400V 61KWHr LFP 126S1P blade cells

@AudiTTQuattro2003

9 ай бұрын

Yes, the 4680 form factor was for structural/puncher resistance due to the chemical formula being more susceptible to thermal runaway. LFP does react as violently, as easily, thus no need for such strong individual battery containment.

@KarlNapp429

9 ай бұрын

@@jimgraham6722 AFAIK currently only CATL produces LFP cells for Tesla.

the point of things like battery day isn't about making promises and timelines. Its an advertisement to work at Tesla on groundbreaking stuff

A new cell architecture by a new company takes about 5+ years. Tesla is solidly in middle of this.

@thinker_211

9 ай бұрын

Some technologies are taking 10+ years to play out

That’s some fine sleuthing amigo! I’m sure Tesla can pull it off ❤

Excellent analysis. At Battery Day, they also talked of mining Li from clay deposits in NV, using a salt process. They even bought a clay mine in anticipation of that, but no info since.

@lucasrem

9 ай бұрын

Elons numbers are trajectories, goals to achieve here. Mega Giga Texas ! We will do this. We have to reinvent it all, traditional industry failed....

@albertiwong

7 ай бұрын

I have not heard of a mine permitted in the US for the last 15 years; no thanks to those nimby environmentalist.

Reminds me of the constantly failed D-cells that would die prematurely. Suspect the massiveness and travel distances within the cells reduce it performance.

The comparison shouldn't just be on range - the size of the battery matters as well. You can specifically consider range only provided the battery sizes are the same - you haven't confirmed that.

@wizzyno1566

8 ай бұрын

The size of the battery doesn't matter at all to a normal consumer. Just to geeks.

That’s it, you updated us on what they said in March 😐. Thanks

There's so much innovation going on in battery tech. It would not surprise me if Tesla went off on a tangent exploring new battery tech and that fact maybe slowing down the building of new production lines. You don't want to ramp up production and build huge factories on a battery tech if you see new tech just around the corner that is going to make your current factories obsolete before they have even finished being built. It's a big tradeoff, you don't want to wait too long because you need batteries now, but you don't want to jump in early on some tech that gets replaced a year later.

Are they still going to make Cybertrucks with 4680 cells? I also heard that the top model Cybertruck is not going to have 500 miles of range but more like 400 miles of range. Can anyone confirm or disprove this? Thanks for the video. I was hoping the 4680 would be more efficient, not less. It's a good thing I'm just about last on the list for Cybertruck delivery. Maybe they will figure it out by then.

@travisporter0801

9 ай бұрын

same here I am probably 3 years from when ever they release it from getting mine.

Well, I’d say the really long cathode plant vs the short anode plant at GigaTexas is a sign.

Sandy Munro owes everyone an apology.

I think Tesla is focusing on production yield and quality before mass produce.

Superb content. Really. This is critical analysis of the 4680. The fact is, that the promise of the 2020 battery day, has fallen flat on its face...if you consider the whoopla of the 2020 presentation. Having said that, the advantage is still with Tesla given its regular battery production global scale. Its a real pity that the 4680 is stuck where it is. However, knowing Musk, they will absolutely try everything to solve the problem. For me, the biggest surprise was the range reduction of the car offered by the 4680...capacity and charge rate are what consumers care most about (apart from safety of course).

@billsrelectric

9 ай бұрын

The LOWER range with the 4680 compared to the 2170s hurts, for sure. The bigger issue IMO is the slow pace of making them. TBH I would be okay if Tesla pivots to a different design. It has been 3 years. Other options are starting to emerge.

@mikldude9376

9 ай бұрын

@@billsrelectricyep lower range = a fail , the whole point of making the new battery is that it is supposed to be better than the current ones , so far it’s a massive fail.

@stuartburns8657

9 ай бұрын

It didn't fail. Elon over inflates expectations vs capabilities. Good for share price however..

@billsrelectric

9 ай бұрын

@@mikldude9376 Failures are going to occur. The greatest baseball hitters "miss" over 60% of the time. Not unlike a stock portfolio too. Someone is considered a great investor if just 30-40% of their stocks do well, and the other 60% are dogs. Right now the entire planet is working to find better, cheaper ways to make batteries. It will happen, even if the 4680 form factor and chemistry is not it.

@AudiTTQuattro2003

9 ай бұрын

Agree. The only failure was announcing an unproven process too early. Only Elon gets away with doing this over and over.

Does this comparison include the structural pack assembly or is it apples to apples?

You didn't actually give any significant new information. Giga Austin has spent most of the last year building a new Cathode plant. Some of the equipment we know has been installed is stuff that not usually found in a Cathode production facility. (The weirdest one I heard of is presses to make tiles) My guess is that the techniques to produce a dry cathode has been solved, and the work lately has been to design mass production equipment to implement those techniques at scale. It's possible their idea won't work, but they certainly *seem* to be confident it will. The first indication that it is solved will be duplicating that plant in Germany and China.

@waynerussell6401

9 ай бұрын

They have hired Matt Tyler, a Milwaukee School of Engineering educated mechanical engineer, who has been working on battery cells for over a decade. Most recently, he was working for Cambridge-based 24M, a battery manufacturer pioneering what it calls “semisolid electrodes” for lithium-ion batteries that came out of the MIT lab of Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang.

Slow production rate or high failure rate? Both?

Are the 4680 tabless?

Toyota did the same thing with the flat batteries that still haven't been used

Looks like the Model Y base now costs, 42990 exactly what you said it should cost

This really sets apart what Tesla is doing and what other car manufatures are doing.

I worked there for almost a year everything is fine

The power is not critical but the range is!!!

First rate work! Knew there were multiple problems with the 4680 but wasn't sure exactly why they were stalled on this (ie a 4680 with 300+AH/kg) and fully dry to get rid of the ovens and solvents (cost)

@PrzyjemnePieniadze

9 ай бұрын

These batteries are not 300wh/kg but 286 wh/kg.... this is another Elon slip-up that was unfortunately not mentioned in the video.

What excellent research and reporting!! Thank you for the knowledgeable and insightful analysis.

I'd worry about the tabless design which makes connections by just pressing tabs together rather than welding or soldering. Over time, that might become an iffy connection, like when you need to shake a flashlight to get a good connection to the batteries. A problem at low voltage differences, less so at >100 V like home outlets.

@lepidoptera9337

6 ай бұрын

If you like to worry about these issues, then you have to become a Tesla engineer and work hard to solve them. Oh, wait... that takes work. ;-)

@sophiegrisom

5 ай бұрын

@@lepidoptera9337 Owners are stuck with problems if beyond warranty, so shouldn't buyers research details? Ask people who bought ~1980 GM diesel cars.

@lepidoptera9337

5 ай бұрын

@@sophiegrisom It's unhealthy to worry about things that you can't change, anyway.

Yes they do

It's a good thing I have used toyotas to watch all the overpromising and delays.

So the Cybertruck will have 2170s most likely? Everyone was adamant that the Cybertruck would have 4680s...

@slavko321

9 ай бұрын

I remember elon said in a call right after the battery day that the dry electrode tech is hard and invited people to join tesla to help solve it.

@billsrelectric

9 ай бұрын

@@slavko321 Elon was right.

The minute that I heard that Nickel would be missing in the new battery I was skeptical.

Sale price isn't based on production price.

I've always been curious about why Tesla uses Chinese battery cells. It seems they can't increase production fast enough to compete on price. If it takes too long to reach their mass production goal, it could be a bigger problem when competing with Chinese EVs.

@ClockworksOfGL

9 ай бұрын

I believe Tesla uses CATL LFP batteries in certain models for certain markets because Tesla simply doesn’t make LFP batteries. They ran the numbers and decided it make more sense to buy those cells from CATL.

@jebes909090

9 ай бұрын

as soon as tesla signed up with china, thier days were numbered. eventually tesla will be bought by a chinese company

@travelguy78

9 ай бұрын

Given that 50%+ of Teslas are LFP batteries they are really sourcing third party batteries. LFP batteries are getting huge in Europe. Almost all affordable Chinese EV`s we get are equipped with LFP. The Tesla Standard range are also coming with LFP. These cars would probably not come over to US because of Tariffs

They have some of the best people working in these cells. I’m sure they will get there but everything could change in a instant with another leap in battery tech and these could be outdated before even becoming the norm.

@rcpmac

9 ай бұрын

And you think that the battery companies haven’t had the “best people “ working on this problem for decades?

@Winnetou17

9 ай бұрын

Yeah, everything could stay the same for years, until it doesn't matter anymore, as better batteries would've arrived. Though, who am I kidding, those are taking their sweet sweet time too.

@digi3218

8 ай бұрын

​@@rcpmacI'm sure they have, but the pressure is on now and I'm sure they have a bunch more resources and money to work with

I will be impressed if the energy storage is 5x for less than 5x of the material used compared to the old battery technology.

Tesla’s growth projections like a lot of Musk’s predictions are very overstated.

What will be in the Cybertruck ? ?

Well you know they got that battery cathode factory going up by the Giga-Texas.

Everyone has a multiplier it's pretty safe to apply to the timescale on any promise they make. With me, I'm ashamed to say I'll usually triple my gut-feel guess on how long and how much effort a project will take before that guess makes it onto a piece of paper. Elon seems to sit anywhere between 15x and never. He's just winging it. Best listen to literally anyone else in Tesla. Simply brilliant bunch of engineers

@monad_tcp

8 ай бұрын

A normal engineer multiplies their estimations by 4. Elon divides the estimations by 4.

@Tyiriel

8 ай бұрын

@@monad_tcp If he was honest, he'd just say "sometime after I die"

Didn't they just removed the 4680 model Y on their website?

They should invest in FREYR’s semi solid technology

4360 sized cells are daft for home or grid scale storeage. In the real world large prismatic cells are dominating.

musk's always optimistic about the timeline usually gets there in the end which is what matters. scaling is often the hard part

@mikect05

9 ай бұрын

Actually no he doesn't. Look back at his life of BS and lies... not sure why so many people blindly follow him.

@Nidkidful

8 ай бұрын

Full self driving hasn't worked yet. If they could do cross country trips like promised, they'd have marketing videos. They had to make hundreds of tries for their current FSD video and cut them together. They haven't managed a 35k model 3 except as a limited distribution stunt that has now been stopped. Tesla semi's are not competitive. Cyber truck doesn't use an exoskeleton. Their plants are less optimized than industry standard, they still haven't fixed build quality. Almost no promise from Elon has actually been delivered. They get close enough and walk away.

I heard cybertruck has franken 4680 called the cyberbattery or something

Yes, nice analysis but you didn't talk about shortages or that we are in a recession @4:34

@thotmorgana

9 ай бұрын

Probably because that does not seem to be the cause of these delays.

18650 is the best battery from panasonic which is why s/x still uses them to this day. 2170 is the main standard for all car companies atm and has more power to weight than any battery. cybertruck will be using 4680 dont worry, they wont be putting 2170 in the trucks because it uses alot more cells.

I would still get the 4,680 battery cells with my model Y, because it has less chance of combusting. And don’t worry, Tesla does a lot of early fine tuning that helps to eventually ramp up massively.

@MegaWilderness

9 ай бұрын

Sorry to disappoint you. They use the same flammable electrolyte

The range,the cost is for the manufacturer not the benefits to the driver.

as of 9/14, standard range model y is now removed of the Tesla US website.

I think Tesla may have overlooked a very fundamental part of the 4680. For example the 4680 is 5.5 times bigger than the 2170 battery and yes; theoretically designed to produce 5x more. But that bigger battery needs 5 times the space, and unless you make a bigger body vehicle, you won't get any more battery range and possibly less because of how the batteries fit into the same space. It's not any more efficient, because the same chemicals are still in use to create the battery. If those batteries were the same size of the 2170, or the 18650 batteries and produced 5 times the power.. that's quite a different story. But fundamentally no change or real improvement. If anything the power density was decreased because you can't put as many batteries in the same space..

@lepidoptera9337

6 ай бұрын

The geometric fill factor is the same, but there is less material being wasted because the case isn't proportionally thicker, which means that overall the battery should produce a slightly higher power density. Not that this has anything to do with anything. The simple fact is that Tesla isn't going to make more batteries than they can sell in their cars, so if they aren't integrating it into more than one model, yet, then there is no point in battery production exceeding the sales of that model. If that model is "overpriced", that means they are actually making more money on it than on the others. It may be true that the customer who buys that model may get shortchanged, but that's not a problem for Tesla. It's a problem for the buyer.

@troublelessone7999

6 ай бұрын

@@lepidoptera9337 agreed.. , because the material inside the battery to make it one.. is no more efficient than what they were already using. Take a look at the range numbers in the models where the 4680 batteries are in play. The range has decreased instead of increased. They stand to increase their profit margin by reducing the number of batteries from their size in the same or smaller space.

@lepidoptera9337

6 ай бұрын

@@troublelessone7999 We shouldn't forget that Tesla also has a habit of restricting range by software. There is a good reason to do that initially: an artificially reduced range stresses the new batteries less, so if long term reliability issues should arise, they will be less severe and impact fewer customers (which avoids generating negative PR for Tesla). One has to wonder if some of that is going on here as well. They will also have to tolerate some serious underutilization of the new battery production line for now because once they decide to put it in one of the updates of the better selling versions, they better have the battery manufacturing capacity available instantly to actually deliver or they will lose sales. So, yeah, a certain amount of production efficiency in the beginning is probably not even avoidable.

It is my understanding that the Semi is currently using the 4680 cell. You said there is currently only the model Y

@Nidkidful

8 ай бұрын

How many semi's are on the road? It's limited run production at best.

hi

Why do they make different styles of batteries

i find it funny people thought tesla had a chance in hell of becoming some super battery producing company. its taken them 20 years to produce what normal car manufacturing companies produce per year, and thats thier actual speciality.

Not to take anything away from Tesla’s many accomplishments but. . most reputable OEMs won’t say things until some measure of confidence is built up regarding manufacturability. FSD, the 4680, and now the Optimus robot- all talked up way too early.

This completely ignores that they have a new factory in California pumping out massive amounts of cells for mega packs.

i know this is the "tesla" space, but it would of been cool if you d made a video on aptera

How often did Tesla ever hit production schedule on time? e.g. cybertruck Also 4680 is not intrinsic to "dry cell" development, if anything 4680 is ramping up production. However, it does 'seem' like 4680 over 2170 were over hyped *until* if production can "reaches maximum efficiency" (Tesla still struggling since birth)

Lets go ! Cant wait for the sponsor of this video ✌️🥰🥰

nano one materials and others will change the batteryworld ❤

8:25 Wrong way round.

Will 4680 last as long as LFP?

Reducing cost of production does not have to mean cheaper cars. It makes sense to sell a now cheaper car at similar prices to before when demand is high.

2:36 that’s not how you should compare them. You are doing price to range as a proportion but the model y is not 100% batteries therefore the 4680Y would always be more expensive. You need subtract the vehicle price before comparing numbers to know the true price to perfomance of 4680. So it’s unknowable if the 4680 are more expensive starting with the model y price

i dont do 300m in the UK a month so this making range anxiety a problem was an ice argument as for charging it would charge at the supermarket while i was shopping i only fill up with diesel once a month anyway (50L) doing 32 to the gallon local 55 on the run from halifax yorkshire where i live it's only 100m coast to coast and 200m to london/edinburgh so i dont need 500m charging at a time this is the same argument as the v8 bigger the better argument i am quite happy with the size of my P3N355 and dont feel the need to compete

Tesla diversified with 18650, 2170, 4680, LFP and now LFP M3P. Most other manufacturers just one battery most lithium ION VS IRON. Lg Chem trying to switch over to LFP Also

Metamaterials inc. in Halifax has batteries that can survive being shot at. NPORE and NCORE cathode anode tech can be made much lighter, and safter now.

Dont make batterys by bulk porduction. Make them in a way for max storage. trash that and do it again.

isnt the anode positive?....it is illustrated as neg or am i seeing crooked