Getting rid of Panasonic battery dependence, Tesla will drop 4 blockbuster bombs

Since its inception, Tesla has relied on Panasonic to supply its batteries. For an electric vehicle company, this risk is indeed not small.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has even complained on social media Twitter many times that if Panasonic hadn't been holding back, the mass production of Model 3 would not have been so messy.

Therefore, Tesla has been trying to get rid of its dependence on Panasonic and complete the vertical integration of the battery industry chain.

Today, let’s talk about Tesla’s plan to “de-Panasonic”.

1. Step by step

In May 2019, Tesla officially announced the acquisition of Maxwell, a company famous for its supercapacitors, which will contribute to the new owner’s battery revolution. .

At last year’s Tesla Investor Annual Meeting, Musk even bluntly stated that Tesla needs a solution that can mass-produce batteries on a large scale.

“This is a key issue. We must increase the mass production capacity of batteries so that we can meet the needs of vehicle production. In the past, battery production capacity was not our bottleneck, but now the situation is different. We must master our own Destiny allows new solutions to be put in place in time," Musk said at the 2019 annual investor meeting.

At that annual meeting, Musk also talked about integrating Maxwell technology into Tesla batteries, but he was unwilling to go into details.

“This matter has strong strategic implications, so let’s leave it to the next investor day. This is a very important technology that will greatly affect vehicle costs and battery cell mass production.” Musk express.

In September last year, there were rumors that Tesla began to recruit talents for battery manufacturing: "Tesla is looking for technicians for the company's newly developed production line. You will become an important participant in our new products."

In 2019, Tesla’s battery research partner, Professor Jeff Dahn of Canada’s Dalhousie University, published a report saying that he had mastered a new battery with a driving range of up to 1 million miles.

This battery, which uses a new electrolyte and next-generation single-crystal NMC 532 cathode, can complete at least 4,000 charge and discharge cycles.

At the end of 2019, Tesla acquired Hibar Systems.

This is a company specializing in battery manufacturing equipment. In Hibar's technology library, the lithium battery automated vacuum filling system is the most valuable technology.

In 2018, Hibar also received a bonus of CAD 2 million from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Industry Research Support Project. What made it stand out in the project was a set of products in the energy storage solution market. The brilliant "high-speed lithium battery manufacturing system".

From this perspective, it is not surprising that Tesla is gradually getting involved in the battery manufacturing business.

In February this year, a Tesla job advertisement confirmed everyone’s guesses:

“Tesla’s battery manufacturing engineering team is looking for a motivated equipment development engineer. , to accelerate the implementation of our next-generation battery manufacturing project. This position will be deeply involved in the design, development, testing and mass production equipment, while also participating in cross-functional work such as verification, promotion and product design changes. ” p>

On April 18 this year, Tesla also announced that it will set up a battery production line after the Berlin Gigafactory is completed in the future, and recruitment for related jobs has started.

Just two weeks later, Tesla’s mysterious project codenamed Roadrunner also surfaced. Its goal is to create a new battery with higher energy density and lower cost than Panasonic batteries.

In addition to the help of Jeff Dahn, Tesla will also use Maxwell’s dry electrode technology.

By digging deeper on LinkedIn, we can also find a lot of information about Tesla’s self-developed battery plan.

Tesla R&D engineer Matthieu Moors directly issued an initiative to his peers: "Join us and let's innovate lithium battery manufacturing technology together.

”

Bonne Eggleston, senior executive of the battery manufacturing department, also said: “Tesla is developing world-class battery manufacturing technology to help the next generation of low-cost, high-performance electric vehicles and energy storage devices come to fruition as soon as possible.”

2. The future of vertical integration

Having said so much, you may feel that the information is large but not concentrated enough.

So, what are the most anticipated aspects of Tesla’s new battery that will be “de-Panasonic”?

At Tesla’s upcoming Battery Day (Battery Day), Tesla is expected to drop 4 blockbuster bombs-single crystal NMC cathode, new electrolyte, NCA electrode and dry electrode coating .

Once you are familiar with the characteristics of these new technologies, you can basically understand how powerful Tesla’s new battery is.

Let’s talk about NMC positive electrode and new electrolyte first.

The two are used together and are the basis for Tesla to achieve one million miles of battery life. These two technologies not only allow battery cell life to be 2-3 times that of existing products, but also increase charging speed.

As for the NCA electrode, it allows Tesla to significantly increase the energy density of the battery.

The dry electrode plating technology from Maxwell is the most powerful of these four blockbusters.

Its function is similar to the previous technologies, which is to increase battery life and increase battery energy density (up to 300 Wh/kg, and even up to 500 Wh/kg in the future).

In other words, the Model 3 with a new battery can have a range of 450 miles (approximately 725 kilometers), or even further increased to 600 miles (approximately 965 kilometers).

In addition to higher energy density, its battery life can also be doubled, safety performance can be further improved, and costs can be cut by 10-20 percentage points.

In addition, dry electrode plating technology is also more environmentally friendly (cobalt is not used in the coating).

From the perspective of vehicle performance, the new battery can not only bring stronger battery life, but also increase charging speed.

From a business perspective, the production speed of new batteries will be greatly increased and the cost can be further reduced.

From an environmental perspective, it is to reduce the use of cobalt materials.

After eliminating Panasonic from Tesla’s supply chain, Tesla will be able to better complete the vertical integration of the entire industry chain, which is Musk’s long-standing pursuit.

“For Tesla, the most critical point this year is to begin the transformation into a vertically integrated sustainable energy company. We use solar roofs to produce energy, use Powerwall to store energy, and then use it in electric vehicles. In the car." Musk said.

Now, what we want to see is how Musk talks about his new phase of grand vision at Tesla’s upcoming Battery Day.

Related reading: Spoilers for Tesla Battery Day, what trump card will Musk come up with?

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.