How Tesla Builds Batteries So Fast

today we're donning our hard hats for a look behind the scenes at exactly how tesla built batteries so fast elon musk has made no secret of the fact that one of the main stumbling blocks he faces on his way to weaning humanity off the internal combustion engine is the quality and capacity of the batteries his cars use making a car run on electricity is easy enough apparently but storing enough precious juice on board to make owning an electric car a comparable or even superior proposition than regular gas guzzlers has thus far proven elusive and while other aspects of technology most notably microchips and integrated circuits have become exponentially more powerful and compact over time battery tech has lagged behind in both technical sophistication and the sheer ability to deliver and manufacture units at scale for now and over the next few years at least tesla works in partnership with japanese electronics firm panasonic an old hand in the battery business but rather than sending a way to have batteries manufactured at a panasonic plant elon musk cleverly insisted panasonic bring its production lines to the tesla gigafactory this obviously has the benefit of nyon eliminating stubborn shipping delays but also thanks to musk's not inconsiderable resources gives the battery design process space to breathe in quite literally the largest building on planet earth vast apparatus like the cathode press or cathode rollers fit comfortably in the mammoth facility with plenty of scope to scale up for instance the cell aging process cell aging since you ask is an essential part of the battery cell manufacturing process when a cell first rolls off the production line it's entirely useless from a chemical standpoint until that is a protective layer called the sei solid electrolyte interface is allowed to form around the electrodes this can take 10 to 12 days although innovations at the gigafactory have enabled panasonic engineers to age cells in place as part of a whole battery and not individually which is far more efficient and therefore quicker it's worth emphasizing at this stage that for elon musk factories aren't simply warehouses that happen to be crammed full of whirring machinery how they operate and function is in his view every bit as important as the finished car itself he said as much to a shareholder meeting five years ago we realized that the true problem where the greatest potential lies must began is building the machine that makes the machine in other words building the factory i'm really thinking of the factory as being like a product therefore almost no detail is left a chance the gigafactory itself for instance wasn't just plonked down at random on a conveniently flat bit of desert instead the entire vast 15 million square feet plant lies on a rigorously precise north south axis partly this is in order to get the best out of the rooftop solar arrays but also it helps streamline the sophisticated indoor navigation systems for the factory's small army of robots those robots perform a majority of the car and battery-related manufacturing tasks in the vet as musk himself admitted not long ago we did go too far on the automation front and automated some pretty silly things panasonic's expertise is of course a major factor in tesla's success for now at least the electronics giant is said to have sunk some 1.6 billion dollars into its work at the gigafactory not least committing to adding a 14th production line in the gigafactory last year to meet demand indeed the company is only now starting to make a meaningful return on its investment still panasonic knows as well as anybody that elon musk is not a man to tolerate less than exemplary performance and as it happens elon has been extremely vocal about his wish to make his own batteries just as soon as it's commercially feasible to do so and although back in june tesla and panasonic renewed their commitment to work together until 2023 elon musk is openly hiring engineers to begin building batteries in-house at fremont california and at the forthcoming gigafactory in berlin indeed musk issued a veiled threat to panasonic on twitter in 2019 by suggesting their work at gigafactory has lagged tesla won't spend money on more capacity until existing lines get closer to 35 gigawatt hours theoretical he said dubbing panasonic's disappointing work rate as a constraint on the model 3 and sending shock waves through the battery world musk's willingness to hold panasonic over a barrel commercially like this has at least enabled him to ring ever greater performance out of the japanese firm through publicly expressing disquiet to the company's supply chain delays and making no secret of his wish to be rid of them he's inspired panasonic to develop new more efficient and quicker techniques for delivering the latest generation of 2170 lithium ion cells currently being used in the tesla model y denser more efficient batteries like these which largely supersede the older 18650 batteries tesla previously used is key to tesla's vision of making electric cars even more efficient quicker out of the factory and crucially more affordable over the coming years elon musk's very public very ambitious claims like his promise to deliver a 25 000 ticket price tesla in the next couple of years certainly serves to keep panasonic's width sharp and their production methods lean as ever a man with his eye on the horizon elon musk also looks forward to an era when rare ethically problematic materials like lithium and especially cobalt can be eliminated from tesla's manufacturing processes altogether and in a september announcement he brashly claimed tesla is looking to produce 100 gigawatt hours worth of battery sales reliably by 2022 that's enough for 1.4 million vehicles with or without help from panasonic so there you have it tesla builds batteries so fast by housing as much of the process as possible under one smart roof and replacing fallible human hands with robotics but only where appropriate that and aggressive tactics with commercial partners does elon musk drive his commercial partners and employees too hard in the ruthless pursuit of excellence let us know in the comments and don't forget to hit subscribe for more supercharged tech content

Channel: Tech Vision

Views: 1,988,303

Rating: 4.8186245 out of 5

Keywords: tesla, elon musk, gigafactory, nevada gigafactory, gigafactory batteries, gigafactory nevada, tesla gigafactory, gigafactory 1, tesla battery factory, tesla battery production, battery, batteries, how car battery works, factory, automation, how car battery is made, tesla battery technology, how tesla battery works, how tesla batteries are made

Id: NTb3SNtwTjg

Length: 5min 28sec (328 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Dont_Say_No_to_Panda]

Just trying to comprehend the battery requirements to scale up stationary storage, the semi, Roadster 2.0 and the CT is bewildering. If they are targeting 100GWh for 2022 and that is only enough for 1.4M vehicles, that just doesn’t seem like enough, does it?

Someone CMIIW but 50,000 CTs with ~200KWh packs is 10GWh on its own is it not? Rumors around release were the Tri-Motor may need an even larger pack. Tesla said the Roadster 2.0 will have 200KWh battery who know how many they’ll make of that (probably less than 1000 for the year.) If the Semi pack is 1MWh and they deliver 1000 in 2022 that’s another GWh right there. Assuming they continue scaling up energy storage that’s likely another 1-2 GWh in 2022.

My point is, aren’t we all kinda predicting 1.4m vehicles for 2022 without factoring in most of these new models?

I hope I’m wrong (and pretty certain I am.)