I think there has been some reading between the lines as far as 4680 cell performance or lack thereof, Below is what we do know.Source / links please.
During the 1at quarter 2022 earning call Drew and Elon responded to a question about the 4680 achieving the goals stated at battery day (Sept. 2019) by saying:
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Martin Viecha: (22:03)
Okay, let’s go to the next question. Next question is how are the current 4680s performing versus expectations set during the battery day in terms of expected range increase and dollars per kilowatt hour?
Elon Musk: (22:15)
Yeah.
Drew: (22:16)
Yeah. We’re working in all the areas we shared on battery day and we have consistent progress across all of those areas towards achieving the five year cost trajectory goals for the costs within our control, but we do not control all of the commodity costs, so that’s an exception I need to call out. Similar to Model 3, it will take us several years to get rate and yields to the point where everything that we’ve discussed is achieved. Our priority was on simplicity and scale during our initial 4680 and structural battery ramps and as we attain our manufacturing goals, we will layer in new material technologies we are developing and higher range structural pack revisions.
Elon Musk: (23:02)
I think maybe in a nutshell, I think it probably is fair to say that 4680 and structural pack will be competitive with the best alternatives later this year and we think will exceed the best alternatives next year.
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That final statement by Elon could be read to mean the 4680 performance is currently not quite at the level of the 2170 cells but it expected to improve to matching the 2170 performance by the end of 2022 and further improve to exceed the 2170 cell performance in 2023. However, Elon might have been just talking about the cost to manufacture MYs with the 4680 cells and structural battery pack vs. the current MYs using 2170 cells.
Also, the expected weight reduction predicted at battery day does not appear to have been realiized based as the vehicle weight numbers in the EPA certification document for the MY AWD (Std. range) are only a little less than the current MY LR and MY P models, both of which have a higher capaicty 2170 based battery pack.
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