Tesla builds 50 million 4680 battery cells at Giga Texas

Posted on


Tesla announced today that it has built 50 million 4680 battery cells at its Giga Texas plant in Austin.

The company made its announcement through a post on X, along with a collage of team members at Giga Texas who contributed to the goal:

Tesla’s 4680 production has increased significantly as it is building the battery cells for electric vehicles manufactured at Giga Texas, along with other factories. In a year, Tesla has managed to produce 40 million battery cells, just under a million a week over the past year.

The last time Tesla announced a major milestone for 4680 battery production at Giga Texas was one year ago, in June 2023, when it announced the production of 10 million cells.

Tesla has maintained that the 4680 cell is an “important” part of its plans and would be a major piece of its growing EV production efforts. Tesla is set to see just a tiny bit of growth in terms of year-over-year vehicle production in 2024 due to it being “between two waves of growth.”

However, it plans to grow out of that phase through the production of vehicles that will equip the next-generation platform, starting with Tesla Robotaxi. CEO Elon Musk said that the vehicle will be unveiled on August 8.

In its Q1 Earnings Call, Tesla said that its 4680 ramp “continued successfully” through the first three months of the year. Additionally, the cell’s production ramp is ahead of the Cybertruck ramp. As a result of the increased production, costs dropped.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Tesla builds 50 million 4680 battery cells at Giga Texas





Source

LG Energy Solution hits 90% battery yield within a month of TN plant operation: report

Posted on


LG Energy Solution (LGES) and General Motors (GM) ‘s joint battery facility in Tennessee seems to be hitting its stride. Dubbed Ultium Cells Plant 2, the facility is expected to reach a total production capacity of 50 GWh, which should be enough to support the production of 600,000 high-performance electric cars that can travel 500 km (310 miles) per charge. 

Kim Young-deuk, head of Ultium Cells‘ second factory, noted that the facility was able to quickly achieve its target yield in a short period of time. “We achieved the target yield of over 90% in just one month of mass production, the shortest period in history,” Kim noted. 

As noted in a Maeil Business Newspaper report, Ultium Cells Plant 2 covers an area of 257,000 square meters (2.8 million square feet), and it currently employs about 1,200 people. LG Energy Solution and GM invested a total of 2.7 trillion won ($1.96 billion) to build the facility, which started full operations on March 2024. So far, the batteries being produced at the site are being used for the Cadillac Lyriq. 

GM’s Chief Executive Officer Chris DeSautels shared his optimism about the plant’s milestones. “The successful launch of the high-end vehicle Lyriq will be an important milestone in the long-standing GM-LG partnership,” DeSautels noted. 

While Ultium Cells Plant 2 currently makes batteries for the Lyriq, plans are underway for the facility to also provide electric vehicle batteries to GM’s new third-generation electric cars. These include the Chevrolet Equinox EV, which is expected to start deliveries this 2024. Considering the Equinox EV’s relatively affordable price, Ultium Cells Plant 2 would likely need to produce quite a lot of batteries for the vehicle. 

It should be noted that LG Group is also building a cathode material production plant in Clarksville, Tennessee. Construction for this facility started in December 2023. Previous reports have also indicated that LGES is looking to start 4680 battery cell production at its Ochang, South Korea facility. The 4680 battery cells from the Ochang plant will be used by one of the company’s largest clients, Tesla. 

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

LG Energy Solution hits 90% battery yield within a month of TN plant operation: report





Source

Elon Musk explains reason for Nvidia chip re-route from Tesla to X

Posted on


Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly pushed for shipments of Nvidia AI processors that were originally meant for the EV maker to be redirected to X, the social media platform he purchased nearly two years ago, emails obtained by CNBC showed.

However, Musk responded to the story, explaining why Tesla would have had trouble handling the shipment.

Musk revealed that Tesla was looking to increase an order of Nvidia’s H100 chip from 35,000 to 85,000 units by the end of the year as part of a massive $10 billion expenditure plan that would help with “combined training and inference AI.”

However, emails seen by CNBC reportedly showed Nvidia senior staffers talking about Musk wanting chips originally meant for Tesla to get to X instead.

The email read:

“Elon prioritizing X H100 GPU cluster deployment at X versus Tesla by redirecting 12k of shipped H100 GPUs originally slated for Tesla to X instead. In exchange, original X orders of 12k H100 slated for Jan and June to be redirected to Tesla.”

The email was written in December.

Another email from late April showed Musk’s comments regarding the uptick in orders from 35,000 to 85,000, as well as his X communication regarding $10 billion in AI spending would “conflict with bookings and FY 2025 forecasts,” the article said.

Musk responded to the story, stating that Tesla “had no place to turn the Nvidia chips on” and that Giga Texas’s expansion will house 50,000 H100 chips for Full Self-Driving training:

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has kept a good relationship with Tesla and Musk and recently admitted the company is the leader in self-driving:

“Tesla is far ahead in self-driving cars. But every single car, someday, will have to have autonomous capability. It’s safer. It’s more convenient. It’s more fun to drive.”

The communication’s surfacing comes just as Musk’s $56 billion pay package is set to be voted on once again at the upcoming Tesla Shareholder Meeting. Many shareholders want to ratify Musk’s massive payout, while others are conflicted with his commitment to the automaker.

This has led some Tesla and Musk fans to question his commitment to the automaker. With the Shareholder Vote coming soon, Tesla has pulled out all the stops to make sure Musk gets paid, especially as he has threatened to stop growing the company to be “a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control.”

Musk said if he cannot get to that ownership point, he “would prefer to build products outside of Tesla.”

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Elon Musk explains reasoning for Nvidia chip re-route from Tesla to X





Source