Tesla has initiated the acquisition of cathode coils from two secondary Chinese language battery producers, which apparently occurred within the latter half of 2023.
These parts are being shipped to Tesla’s Giga Texas manufacturing facility in the US for the manufacturing of 4680 batteries, as reported by the native media outlet LatePost (through CnEVPost).
Cathode coils, essential in battery cell manufacturing, account for about 35 p.c of the entire cell value. These coils are a part of Tesla’s technique to increase the manufacturing capability of its 4680 batteries, a design first unveiled throughout Tesla’s 2020 Battery Day presentation. The 4680 battery is Tesla’s first battery designed totally in-house, with the potential to cut back prices considerably.
In accordance with the report, Tesla had carried out audits of assorted Chinese language cylindrical battery manufacturing traces final 12 months, finally choosing these two suppliers for his or her cathode coils. The follow of sourcing these parts from China is predicted to proceed into the third quarter of the present 12 months.
An unnamed supply near Tesla revealed that Panasonic, Tesla’s battery provider, shouldn’t be anticipated to begin manufacturing of 4680 cells till the third quarter. Tesla had beforehand sought cathode coils from bigger battery producers, together with CATL and BYD’s battery unit FinDreams, however was declined as these corporations choose promoting full cells.
The method of sourcing solely cathode coils is unusual as a result of intricate and managed environments required for cell manufacturing. Moreover, importing these coils from China to the US incurs important prices, given the necessity for top sealing in transportation, specialised packaging, and the urgency to rework these coils into cells inside a brief timeframe to keep away from high quality degradation.
Tesla’s transfer to import coils is a part of its effort to surmount manufacturing bottlenecks and scale up the output of the 4680 battery. Regardless of the ambition to mass-produce this battery in 2021, Tesla solely managed to begin small-scale manufacturing by mid-2023, contributing to the delay within the launch of the Cybertruck.
As of the stories, Tesla’s Texas manufacturing facility reportedly has a restricted manufacturing capability, at the moment adequate to provide solely an alleged 24,000 Cybertrucks yearly, far under Tesla’s preliminary projections. The corporate additionally faces the problem of reaching dry coating for the anode however has not but executed so for the cathode, requiring the outsourcing of widespread cathode supplies for battery manufacturing.