Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On September 19, three years ago this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Elon Musk) hosted a remarkable outdoor event, which he called "Battery Day." Before that, Musk repeatedly mentioned that he planned to launch a popular electric car at a reasonable price, and he finally explained his plan to achieve his goal to Tesla fans on Battery Day. For more than two hours, Musk redesigned the manufacturing process of electric car batteries, introducing new methods, including the mining and processing of nickel and lithium, electrode manufacturing, battery design and stacking. These new methods will halve battery costs by around 2023, allowing Tesla to produce electric cars that sell for as little as $25000, he said.

Now, Tesla's "Battery Day" has become an important moment for the industry, Musk used to warn competitors must significantly reduce costs, or risk losing the electric car race. Volkswagen and BMW have promised to reduce battery costs by 50%, and GM has promised to cut battery costs by about 40%. Many companies have followed Musk's description of the oversized battery 4680, which is about twice the size of a traditional cylindrical electric car battery, 46mm (1.8in) in diameter and 80mm (3.1in) in length. Other companies are trying to improve production methods such as dry cell electrodes (DBE) to replace expensive traditional electrode manufacturing equipment.

However, Tesla, which sells for $25000 (what analysts call Model 2), has not yet made its debut, and it is unlikely that it will go public any time soon. The key to reducing the price of electric vehicles is the battery, which may account for 40% of the total cost of the car. Tesla has begun producing 4680 batteries in small batches. The company's giant plants in Fremont, Calif., and Austin, Texas, produce enough batteries to assemble about 75000 Model Ys a year, but that's a fraction of the 750000 Model Ys Tesla sold in 2022. The early 4680 batteries did not seem to have many of the changes Musk described on Battery Day. For example, according to multiple independent disassembly of batteries, their cathodes do not use dry cell electrodes and their anodes do not contain silicon.

In fact, biographer Walter Walter Isaacson revealed in his recently published Biography of Elon Musk that Musk's own idea of making the low-cost Tesla the core product of Battery Day is fading. Mr. Isaacson wrote that Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla's chief designer, had repeatedly submitted plans for the $25000 self-driving car to Mr. Musk, but all of them were rejected by Mr. Musk, who seemed more inclined to develop a more expensive self-driving taxi. Musk believes that car owners can rent out the car when they are not in use to earn a high fee and thus pay the cost of buying the car. But von Holzhausen supports the development of Model 2, which he has been developing silently in his design studio. It wasn't until September 2022 that Musk finally approved the development of the car. The book doesn't say when Tesla will launch Model 2, but it could take years. Musk released a concept version of the electric pickup CyberTruck in 2019, but mass production may not be until next year.

It can be said that Tesla, which sells for $25000, is not as important as it used to be in building a market for mass-market electric cars. Chinese electric car companies BYD, SAIC Mingjue and Polar Krypton are producing a number of high-quality models at prices ranging from $16000 to $26000. Volkswagen said it was developing an electric car priced between $20, 000 and $30, 000, which is expected to be available by 2030. But there is no evidence that Chinese cars will be sold on a large scale in the West, and Volkswagen's sales of electric vehicles are not prominent.

As a result, Musk's plan is still very important. Like Apple, the Tesla brand enjoys a high reputation: in terms of the popularity of the ModelY, the launch of the home version of Tesla could help boost large-scale sales of electric cars. With the exception of China, no other carmaker has the same opportunity to make such a splash in the mass market.

The Vision of "Battery Day" ever since Tesla was founded in the early 21st century, Musk has been talking about the dream of building cheap electric cars. In Tesla's 2006 Master Plan, Musk said Tesla's main goal is to create an era of low-cost household electric vehicles and phase out fossil fuel vehicles. He plans to start by making expensive electric cars, such as the $100000 Tesla sports car, and then gradually reduce costs through subsequent models. Today, subsidies from the US government can reduce the price of the basic Model 3 to about $30,000. But Model 2 should be cheaper, and with subsidies, it could sell for less than $20, 000.

On Battery Day, Musk once again raised his expectations for the electric car. Tesla will produce an electric car priced at $25000 within three years, and the key to achieving this goal is the battery and the metal used, he said. "to that end, we put more energy into battery manufacturing, trying to revolutionize everything from mining to making a complete battery pack," Musk said at the time. We are not involved in the battery business for fun, but because it has become a constraint and bottleneck to our rapid growth. "

However, if you take a closer look at Musk's remarks over the past seven years, you will find that he is sometimes wavering on the issue of cheap cars. In the 2016 update of the master plan, Musk did not mention any household electric cars, but said publicly for the first time that "almost everyone" could afford personally owned self-driving taxis. When he released his third master plan five months ago, he didn't talk about affordable cars at all. His ambivalence seems to stem from his enthusiasm for autopilot. On Battery Day, Musk even promised to provide hands-free driving for Model 2. Clearly, he may have been shaken by the greater benefits of producing self-driving taxis.

In his book, Isaacson revealed that during a conference call in the summer of 2022, Musk told von Holzhausen and other Tesla executives that self-driving taxis will "change everything". "this product will make Tesla a company worth $100, and people will talk about it a hundred years later." Von Holzhausen and Lars Moravy, vice president of automotive engineering for Tesla, have repeatedly tried unsuccessfully to persuade Mr Musk to produce both a $25000 car and a self-driving taxi.

Finally, in September 2022, von Holzhausen and Moravi made an economic case for launching Model 2. In his book, Isaacson wrote that Musk had publicly predicted many times that Tesla would grow at an annual rate of about 50% by 2020, when annual car sales could reach 20 million. But two of Mr Musk's lieutenants believe that to achieve this, Tesla's product line must include a small, cheap car that could sell twice as many midsize cars as Model 3 and Model Y and the SUV. It can take years for self-driving taxis to get regulatory approval, so it makes more sense to produce small cars priced at $25000 during that period. The company can produce both models on the same assembly line.

According to Isaacson, Musk finally approved von Holzhausen's plan seven months ago, in February of this year. Von Holzhausen showed Musk a model of a self-driving taxi and Model 2. Both cars look like CyberTruck, with sharp edges and "Blade Killer" style. Isaacson quoted Musk as saying: "when one of the cars appears around the corner, people will think they see something from the future."

Details determine success or failure beyond Tesla, where other companies also see the benefits of a larger 4680 battery, which reduces the number of batteries needed for a 100kwh battery pack from 4416 to 960. It is reported that Japan's Panasonic, South Korea's Samsung and LG Energy Solutions, as well as China's Ningde Times and other companies are scrambling to adopt the new battery.

In addition, the 4680 battery has more potential. Tesla replaced the traditional battery sheet with another method, introducing what they call a "stepless ear" heat discharge system. The addition of silicon to the anode greatly increases the mileage. Like 4680, many companies are working on solving DBE problems, including OneD Battery Sciences, a silicon anode startup in Palo Alto, Calif., AM Batteries, a Massachusetts startup, and Saueressig Group in Germany.

However, mastering all these innovations has proved difficult: Tesla and other companies have successfully used DBE for battery anodes because the graphite material used in most anodes is usually smooth and becomes flat when compressed with calender rollers. But these companies encounter difficulties with nickel, manganese and cobalt particles in Calendering cathodes because they are not easily flattened or attached to aluminum collectors. Tesla 4680 batteries did not introduce silicon into the cathode, according to a battery disassembly campaign organized by Jordan Giesige, the host of the podcast "The Limiting Factor", last year. Rob Anstey, chief executive of GraphenixDevelopment, a maker of silicon anodes, said silicon was hard and sharp and would scratch and cut collectors and calender rollers. Matt Tyler, head of research and development for Tesla's dry electrodes, didn't respond to requests for comment.

"there is a huge gap between what is conceptually cool and the final product," said Alex Yu, chief technology officer of Factorial Energy, a Massachusetts-based lithium-metal battery developer. "you may be able to come up with a lot of new ideas, but everything takes time to test. It takes years to go from research and development to small samples to cost-effective and high-quality real products."

Battery Day resonates because it is a high-profile party for companies that have been trying to make batteries for commercial electric vehicles for more than a decade. Now, Musk is pushing them to innovate and push electric vehicles into the mainstream market. No one dares to underestimate the difficulty of the challenge, but with so many companies following Mr Musk's example, it may mean that he is the only one who can lead them to their goals.

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