Big thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring today’s video. Tesla just had their battery day event
where they announced some exciting battery technology breakthroughs that will change
the future of electric cars. In this video we’ll go over the most important parts of
Battery Day so you can know what to expect from Tesla’s upcoming vehicles. Tesla’s
mission is accelerate the transition to sustainable energy which is obviously a huge task that
requires a lot of batteries. Like a lot of batteries. So Tesla has two goals that their
new battery technology hopes to solve: massively scaling battery production and producing more
affordable battery cells. Currently electric vehicles are still relatively expensive compared
to gasoline vehicles mainly due to the high battery cost. Up to this point Tesla has focused
on vertical integration to minimize production costs meaning they aim to build their factories
and vehicles themselves from the ground up. And now they’re doing this with batteries
with a 5-step plan to cut the cost of batteries in half. Let’s take a look at these five
steps. The first step is cell design. Tesla’s current battery design includes a separator
tab and a jelly roll, though it sounds delicious it is not to be eaten because it’s actually
the wound film of electrodes. The last time Tesla released a new battery was in 2017 with
their 2170 cell that started shipping in the Model 3. To move to the next step in battery
cell design, Tesla needs bigger cylindrical cells because those actually cost less. This
brings us to Tesla’s brand new biggest battery cell ever: the 4680 tabless cell which has
no separator tab and brings a huge amount of improvements including: simpler manufacturing,
fewer parts, and 5x reduction in electrical path meaning the electricity inside the cell
travels a much shorter distance than before. These new 4680 tabless battery cells also
have 5 times the amount of energy, adding 16% more range to vehicles, and 6 times the
power as if Teslas didn’t already have enough power. It also allows for faster Supercharging
times. These benefits are the core to what will move Tesla toward their overall mission:
making their vehicles more affordable, making their vehicles travel further, and making
their vehicles charge faster. Those are so important for the mass adoption of EVs. Elon
said this was extremely difficult for the Tesla engineers to do and why it’s such
a big deal. And these new battery cells aren’t just a prototype. Tesla said they’re already
ramping the production of these batteries at their new pilot plant in California. Elon
said it will probably take about a year to get to 10 GWh annualized rate at the pilot
plant, but either way it’s happening right now. The second step in their plan is cell
factory and how the batteries are made. The typical wet process is complicated and lengthy
where the powders are mixed with water or solvent then they have to go into a dry oven
then compressed into final density. The newer “Dry” process is an extremely more simple
process which makes the powder directly into film. This sounds great, but Elon definitely
made it clear that this is very difficult and they’re still refining the process especially
to scale. He basically said it’s working, but not at a high yield yet. They’re on
a 4th generation machine for this dry process, and Elon estimates the 6th generation machine
should have mass production capability. Who knows when that will be but when that does
happen, the biggest benefits of dry battery electrode is a 10x footprint reduction and
10x energy reduction which is a massive improvement. Also with Tesla’s new high speed continuous
motion assembly their goal is to make one factory have the same production output as
2-3 factories with a 75% reduction in expenses and 10x smaller footprint. For example, the
same amount of space that produced 150 GWh in 2018 now can produce 1TWh which is an exponential
increase. Elon said that all other goals aside, Tesla’s biggest grand scheme goal
is to be the best at manufacturing which will lead to major scalability. Tesla's internal
battery cell production plan is 100GWh by 2022 and 3TWh by 2030. The third step in their
plan is anode materials. Bottom line: Tesla loves Silicon. It’s the most abundant element
in earths crust after oxygen, and it stores 9 times more lithium than graphite. However,
the bugaboo with Silicon is that it expands. So after many cycles it starts to crumble
and in technical terms gets “gooey”. To fix this, Tesla plans to design for expansion
and use raw silicon then stabilize the surface through an elastic coating which will increase
vehicle range by 20% and lead to cheaper electric vehicles. The fourth step is cathode materials.
Cathodes are like bookshelves. A battery needs a stable structure to contain the ions. This
structure cannot crumble or get gooey as the ions move back and forth. If there isn’t
a stable structure the battery loses cycle life and degrades quickly. Cobalt is very
stable, but has its ethical and environmental woes. Tesla believes Nickel will solve this
problem. Nickel is the cheapest metal and has the highest energy density, but Nickel
needs to be stabilized. Well, Tesla’s high nickel cathode development aims to maximize
nickel and remove cobalt which should lead to 15% reduction in cathode cost. But Tesla
doesn’t want to be constrained by nickel availability so they’re choosing a diversified
cathode approach which will be a combination of iron and nickel depending on the product.
Long range vehicles like Cybertruck and Semi will be high nickel. This simplified cathode
manufacturing process should lead to major cost reductions. Tesla is also taking advantage
of nickel and lithium mining for cathode production in North America for simpler mining and simpler
recycling. There is significant untapped lithium in clay. In fact there’s enough lithium
in Nevada to convert all the gasoline vehicles in the US to electric. Tesla has discovered
a sustainable, environmentally friendly way of getting lithium by using table salt to
extract the lithium. This new sulfate-free process has a 33% reduction in lithium cost.
To prepare for Tesla’s Battery Day I was able to learn more about the basics of how
electricity works through today's sponsor, Brilliant, which is the best place to learn
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Maxwell's famous field equations. If you’re like me and you’re interested in electric
vehicles it really does help to learn about the basics behind the technology. Go to Brilliant.org/AndySlye to
sign up for free. Also, the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium membership
so click the link below to get started today. The last step is cell vehicle integration.
Elon said there’s a vehicle architecture that they’ve been working on for a long
time and they finally figured it out. It starts with single piece casting for the front and
rear, and Tesla achieved this by having the largest casting machine that’s ever been
made and it’s currently in operation at the Fremont plant. By creating single piece
castings of high pressure die cast aluminum, it leads to a 40% cost savings in the rear
underbody and a reduction of 79 parts per car. Tesla also developed their own alloy
that has never existed before. These Giga casting innovations also use no heat treating
or coatings which is a big deal for reducing complexity and cost. These new castings will
be connected to what they’re calling their new Structural Battery, which for the first
time ever, is a dual use Tesla battery, meaning it’s used as an energy device and as a structure
to the car. These structural batteries improve mass and range. This allows Tesla to pack
battery cells more densely with no excess structure. The cells will be glued to the
top and bottom sheets which will allow for cell transfers. It also makes for an incredibly
stiff structure and lets Tesla move the cells closer to the center of the car which improves
safety. The simpler, smaller, integrated battery + body factory of the future leads to 10%
mass reduction, 14% range increase opportunity, and 370 fewer parts. And so, at the beginning
of Battery Day Tesla said their goal was to half the cost of battery production. Well
after all five of these steps, Tesla can achieve a whopping 56% reduction in price per kWh.
So if we stack up the benefits of Tesla’s vertical integration we’re looking at a
vehicle range increase of 54%, a price per kWh reduction of 56%, and wait for it, a reduction
in investment per Gigawatt hour of 69%. Elon had to do it. Now even though Elon says it
will take them around 3 years to fully realize these benefits, this still means that long
term scaling will be massively increased. What does this mean for Tesla's future products?
It means electric vehicle powertrains could cost less than combustion engines. As you
can see from all of this, Tesla really focused on maximizing efficiency and reducing costs
and complexity for their entire production process. They also kind of confirmed a fully
autonomous $25k Tesla coming in a few years which I’m super excited about. Oh and they
also announced a brand new $140,000 Plaid Model S that goes 0-60 in less than 2 seconds
and does a 1/4 mile in less than 9 seconds which if true beats the Lucid Air. And it
has 520 miles of range. That’s a wrap on Tesla Battery Day. What is the one thing that
impressed you the most? Let me know in the comments below. My name is Andy. Thank you
so much for watching. Be sure to hit that Like button if you enjoyed this video and
subscribe to see more Tesla and tech videos in the future. I’ll talk to you in the next
one.