new tesla 4680 battery update
In today’s update we have Tesla producing 1 million 4680 batteries, a Giga Fest in Austin Texas, Starlink is being put to the test in the skies, and the Boring Company submit plans for a Miami loop. So let’s get going.
One Million 4680’s
Tesla has officially announced the production of 1 million next-generation 4680 battery cells at its pilot factory in California.
The reveal from Tesla’s official Twitter account celebrates the one millionth 4680 cell produced in January at the Kato Road facility. This is the pilot production facility for Tesla’s latest innovation in cell design, their first proprietary battery designed and built completely in house.
The announcement comes as Tesla is expected to start deliveries of its new Model Y equipped with its 4680 cell and structural battery pack out of the Texas factory.
This is the same battery production facility that was running prior to the Tesla Battery Day event in September 2020. So, it’s been around for a while. And while one million batteries does sound like a lot, and it is a great accomplishment - it’s not exactly a groundbreaking result after a year and half at least of production - particularly when you look at how fast these machines are moving.
It’s probably reasonable to assume that they are referring to 1 million production ready cells, and they’ve actually produced many more that were either test runs or cells that turned out sub optimal.
There was this tweet that popped up last week from a guy named Alex Voigt, he claimed to have inside information about 4680 cell production. On February 13th he said, “1 Million Tesla 4680 Batteries produced at the Kato Road facility waiting for the Giga Austin Model Y.” And he also shared that the yield from 13 production lines at Kato is approximately 95 percent, which would mean about 5 percent of all cells made right now are rejected for defects. That’s actually a very good success rate from what I understand, I think anything over 90 is considered excellent for this kind of manufacturing. Alex also said that one battery production line is in testing mode at Giga Austin. He attached an infographic showing these stats but it’s so low res, you can hardly read anything.
Based on speculation, we can gather that 1 million 4680’s is about enough cells for 1000 Model Y vehicles, maybe fifteen hundred at the most. So, not actually very many in the grand scheme of things. For Giga Texas to actually reach volume production, there will need to be around 1 million batteries produced per day just to keep up. So we do have a long way still to go.
Having said that, it was only one month ago on the earnings call that Tesla SVP of engineering Drew Baglino said that cells would not be a production constraint this year. He also said that Tesla was making “meaningful progress” in ramping production at the pilot plant, but he didn’t confirm the production capacity.
There’s no reason right now to believe that Tesla couldn’t ramp production of batteries exponentially as the need arises. It’s looking like the production of vehicles at Giga Texas will be off to a slow start and will ramp up some time later this year.
As far as we know, the goal for Kato Road cell production is still to reach 10 gigawatt hours per year, which would make it one of the highest output battery factories in the world.
Giga Fest is Coming to Austin Texas
Mark your calendars for April 7th, Tesla will be throwing another Giga Fest and this one is going down in Austin Texas.
We can remember from September 2021, when the company had a county fair style festive opening at the Berlin Germany plant. On that occasion Elon gave a keynote speech, there were tours of the production floor, product demonstrations and general fun stuff. This was as much an open house for Tesla fans as it was a community event for the people of Brandenburg and Gruenheide to come out and see what all of the fuss was about - that particular factory had been pretty controversial for a wide variety of reasons.
Shortly after that event in Germany, Elon started hinting that a similar open house event would take place in Austin.
This Giga Fest in Texas is shaping up to be one massive party. The construction project just outside of the Austin city center has flown by at a rapid pace over the last year and half, with crews working pretty near 24/7 to get this factory operational.
Tesla recently moved their company headquarters to Austin after Elon himself made the decision to sell all of his California houses and relocate permanently to Texas. Elon’s new office is located inside the Austin factory and overlooks the production line.
Of course the only details that we have on Giga Fest come from Elon’s Twitter account when he replied to a Tweet asking him when the event might happen. First he said April 1st, then probably realized that he shouldn’t plan a party for April Fool’s Day because people already have trouble figuring out when the guy is making a joke or being serious. So, he settled on the 7th. Makes sense.
Elon also followed up to say invites would go out to VIPs and that Tesla owners in the greater Giga Texas area will get priority on tickets.
If you want a little sneak preview at what we might see during Giga Fest, then there is this new video released that shows an inside view of the Austin factory as of mid-February. This is, I guess, a compilation of Snap Chats from a person or people who are working at the GigaFactory site. The camera work makes it almost unwatchable, to be honest, I can’t understand why people are constantly zooming in and out in their videos, it’s like a cheese grater on the eyes. Anyway, we do get a few cool views of some production machines and robots, there are a few Model Ys visible on the floor and some views of the collections of parts ready to go.
And this comes at the same time that we are seeing dozens of vehicles staged outside of Giga Texas that look ready for delivery. It looks like a little over 100 of them. Most vehicles have a tight fitting black cover, which is a new occurrence at the factory - we’ve seen Model Ys around the site before, but never looking like this. From the couple of vehicles that are uncovered we can see metallic blue and black paint colours.
All signs point to these being the real deal, Texas made Model Y’s with 4680 batteries and structural packs all ready for transport and customer delivery. It’s finally happening.
SpaceX Testing Starlink on Gulfstream Aircraft
On February 20th, Elon Musk shared on Twitter that he was using the Starlink satellite internet service “in the air” while traveling on an airplane.
When asked by another user “How soon until other aircraft can use it?” Elon responded – “Depends mostly on FAA certification, but hopefully within 6 months. We’re testing on Gulfstreams to debug issues, but deployment priority is commercial airliners.”
SpaceX would need approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission to operate Starlink antennas aboard air planes. Last year, Elon said that Starlink will be capable of providing “low latency ~half gigabit connectivity in the air” And floated the idea that Starlink would be adopted by commercial jets for in-flight wifi. Musk says SpaceX’s main focus is on obtaining a license to provide internet aboard Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 aircraft, “as those serve the most number of people.”
As anyone who’s ever tried to use airline wifi connections would know, it is absolute garbage right now - you’d be lucky to be able to send an email or check Twitter, don’t even think of streaming a video. Starlink changes this. As the size of the satellite constellation grows, there will be near global access to high speed, low latency internet.
Boring Company Submits Plans for 6.2-mile Loop in Miami
A new report out of Florida reveals The Boring Company has submitted a proposal to build the North Miami Beach Loop, a 6 point 2 mile transport tunnel system under the city of Miami. The proposed system would feature seven stations along State Road 826, between the Golden Glades Transit Center and Sunny Isles Beach.
The Boring Company estimated that the loop would initially be able to carry more than 7,500 passengers per hour, and could be scaled to carry more than 15,000 per hour.
The estimated cost of the project was put at 185 million to 220 million dollars, according to The Boring Company's proposal. It predicts that construction would take fewer than three years if the permitting process was expedited.
The proposal also recommends several potential extensions to the North Miami Beach Loop, including a 3-mile connection to Hard Rock Stadium and a 1 point 8-mile link to Florida International University's Biscayne Campus.
North Miami Beach commissioner Michael Joseph is on board with the project, telling reporters, "We have a lot of traffic congestion and this would be a way of alleviating a great deal of that traffic."
He said the estimated cost per mile of the Loop would be "a fraction of what is seen in other types of mass transit projects proposed in South Florida, while the construction would not be as disruptive to the local economy."
For now, the Miami Beach Commissioner noted that efforts are underway to secure funding for the proposed project. The city is currently seeking funding from regional, state, and federal governments.
This would be The Boring Company’s first major project outside of Las Vegas, where they’re currently trying to show off a proof of concept loop underneath the Vegas Convention Center that is being expanded to the city’s downtown.
Many people have argued that the Convention Center Loop is a bit underwhelming. And that’s fair to say right now, but it does kind of miss the point. The Boring Company is all about digging the holes and the construction of the tunnels and stations, which in this case has been done beautifully. The project was completed as expected, in a reasonable time frame given the pandemic complications, the costs were kept in check and there were no disasters or injuries involved in the construction. That is a win.
The actual user experience and the functionality is unfortunately a bit held back by the Tesla vehicles that power the transportation. For whatever reasons, there are still human beings driving the cars, and that is going to prevent the Loop from functioning at its true capacity. Those Teslas need to be fully autonomous in the tunnels to hit the speeds that would be required to avoid traffic jams. We don’t have that yet. But we’re still hopeful that it is coming sooner rather than later.
