A cylindrical battery with a diameter of 46 mm, the wealth growth point of Musk, the world's richest man?

Source of this article: Time Weekly Author: He Mingjun

The last project musk had high hopes for was the Shanghai Gigafactory, which solved tesla's existential crisis.

In 2017, China became Tesla's largest market outside the United States. Affected by factors such as the increase in import tariffs, Tesla's performance declined. How to keep the Chinese market has become Musk's number one task. In July 2018, Tesla signed an investment agreement with Shanghai Municipality, Lingang Administrative Committee and Lingang Group for pure electric vehicle projects. In October of the same year, Tesla signed the Land Transfer Contract with the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Planning and Land, setting a record for the fastest speed from signing the contract to the land transfer of foreign-funded projects in Shanghai.

The total investment of the Shanghai Gigafactory project is 50 billion yuan, which basically realizes Tesla's "localization." Solving the problem of survival and how to reduce costs was put on the agenda by Musk. In September 2020, Musk's long-brewed 4680 project at the Tesla Battery Day event pointed to the core of new energy vehicles - power batteries.

The 4680 battery is named after its size and is a cylindrical battery with a diameter of 46 mm and a height of 80 mm. Musk announced at the time that the 4680 battery energy would increase by 5 times, the mileage would increase by 16%, and the battery power output would increase by 6 times.

In February 2022, Tesla employees celebrated the rollout of the 1 millionth 4680 battery outside their headquarters in Austin, Texas. At present, Tesla's four gigafactories in the United States in Three Continents and Berlin, Germany, produce 4680 batteries, and will start delivering the Model Y equipped with 4680 batteries at the end of this quarter.

Why is the 4680 battery so important?

The next growth point?

According to Forbes real-time rich list data, on February 22, Musk ranked first with $233.6 billion. Musk's wealth is worth as much as $52 billion ahead of second place.

Musk is sitting on the throne of the richest man, and it is indispensable to the support of the Chinese market.

In 2017, China has become Tesla's largest market outside the United States. Tesla's revenue in the Chinese market in 2021 was $13.844 billion, an increase of 107.8% from $6.662 billion in 2020.

In August 2019, Musk appeared at the "World Artificial Intelligence Conference" held in Shanghai and met with Zeng Yuqun in the Ningde era in a low-key manner. Two months later, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory was completed and put into operation. Until this time, Musk was able to get rid of the performance pressure of Tesla's Chinese market. Soon, Musk aimed at reducing cost power batteries, and the 4680 battery project came into being.

In September 2020, Musk unveiled the long-brewed 4680 project at the Tesla Battery Day event, claiming that this battery can increase Tesla's cruising range by 54% and reduce the cost of the battery by 56%.

Compared with the 18650 battery and 21700 battery previously used by Tesla, the 4680 battery has become larger in size, but the mileage has increased significantly. The 21700 battery with a diameter of 21 mm and a height of 70 mm has a monomer capacity of 35% more than the 18650 battery with a diameter of 18 mm and a height of 65 mm, while the 4680 battery with a larger size is further increased by 500% compared with the 21700 battery.

The cost reduction is reflected in the number of batteries used. The battery cell is the accumulative part of the rechargeable battery, and the quality of the battery directly determines the quality of the rechargeable battery. On a 75KWh new energy vehicle, about 7100 cells are needed to use 18650 batteries, about 4400 cells to use 21700 batteries, and 950 cells to use 4680 batteries.

While ensuring battery life, the smaller number of cells can reduce the cost of bicycle batteries and improve production efficiency. The 4680 large cylinder can also be used as a "structural battery" and can be flexibly applied to the CTC design of various models. From a business point of view, with a configuration that is almost flat, a little ahead of other people's production speeds at the same time, the company can continue to maintain its advantage.

Zhang Xiang, dean of the New Energy Vehicle Technology Research Institute of Jiangxi New Energy Technology Vocational College, analyzed, "4680 is to increase the size of the battery, optimize the internal structure of the battery, and achieve cost reduction and energy density improvement, and now some other suppliers are also starting to do 4680." ”

According to Tesla's expectations, Tesla's 4680 battery production capacity will reach 100GWh per year by the end of 2022, meeting the needs of 1.3 million new energy vehicles. And this is just the beginning, domestic and foreign head power battery manufacturers have begun to accelerate the construction of 4680 battery production line, including many leading enterprises such as Ningde Times, Panasonic, and Yiwei Lithium Energy.

On February 19, the opening ceremony of the intelligent technology integrated electric site development project of CATL times and the Shanghai intelligent power system project (phase II) of Ruiting times was completed, which was in the same area as Tesla's Shanghai gigafactory.

4680 mass production, ternary battery is good?

Nowadays, Tesla is already the "card face" of new energy vehicles in European and American countries. Tesla's choice of what technical route and where to build a production plant have been closely watched by global capital. From birth to the peak, Musk, who rules Tesla, has his own logic, and 4680 may be his "foreshadowing".

Power batteries are the core of new energy vehicles, and "energy density" is regarded as one of the core attributes of lithium batteries. Lithium iron phosphate and ternary two major power battery technology schools have been competing for existing market share.

From 2018 to 2020, due to the subsidy policy tending to long endurance and high energy density, the proportion of ternary batteries has been higher than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries. However, from 2021 onwards, the subsidy policy has declined, different models are positioned with different power battery technologies, and the lower price of lithium iron phosphate has begun to "counterattack", and by the fourth quarter, lithium iron phosphate has fully surpassed the ternary battery in terms of installed capacity and installed capacity.

In the past, Tesla used to be dominated by ternary batteries, but ternary batteries were affected by fluctuations in raw material prices, and the cost went all the way up, coupled with the decline in subsidies, the cost performance of ternary batteries was greatly reduced. At the third quarter of 2021 investor exchange meeting, Musk announced that the worldwide standard endurance version of the Model 3 and Model Y will all be switched to lithium iron phosphate batteries.

Tesla's "standing in line" has undoubtedly further promoted the market's enthusiasm for lithium iron phosphate. CITIC Securities statistics show that the number and scale of lithium iron phosphate expansion announcements in 2021 are significantly higher than those of ternary cathode materials. According to the production plan of each company, it is expected that the production capacity of lithium iron phosphate by the end of 2024 will increase by 1.396 million tons from 639,000 tons/year at the end of 2021 to 2.035 million tons/year; while only 4 companies have announced the expansion of ternary cathode materials in the past year, and it is expected that the production capacity of ternary cathode materials will increase by 320,000 tons by the end of 2024, far lower than the increase in lithium iron phosphate production capacity.

Low-cost lithium iron phosphate batteries have better safety and stability, the only drawback is the lower energy density. Just the current heat of lithium iron phosphate does not mean that ternary technology will be limited in the future.

According to the analysis of some brokers, Tesla's 4680 battery solution uses a set of new designs and new technology combinations of omnipolar ears, dry electrodes, high nickel and high silicon systems and CTC to achieve high energy and high power density of the battery and reduce the cost of electricity. This seems to indicate that the 4680 battery is a power battery equipped with ternary technology.

In the 4680 large cylindrical system, the mainstream manufacturers of the positive electrode use the NCM811 positive electrode, and the large cylindrical has a higher tolerance for the volume expansion of the silicon-based negative electrode, so it is more suitable for the high nickel + silicon-based anode system. In addition to improving a number of index parameters, the design of the 4680 battery can also reduce the cost by 14%. This is a major positive for ternary batteries, which are plagued by cost issues.

However, some analysts mention that 4680 is only a battery size, and 4680 batteries can also use lithium iron phosphate technology. Yu Qingjiao, secretary general of the Zhongguancun New Battery Technology Innovation Alliance, said, "The main application of the 4680 model is ternary batteries, but it can also be used in other material system batteries. ”

Wu Hui, president of Yiwei Economic Research Institute, analyzed, "In the short term, the cost advantage of lithium iron phosphate batteries is obvious, but in the long run, high energy density is the development direction of power batteries. Once the cost advantage of lithium iron phosphate batteries is no longer obvious, high-energy density ternary batteries may become the choice of more car companies. The lithium iron phosphate version of the 4680 also has its application market, such as low-speed cars, two-wheeled vehicles, micro-electric vehicles and so on. ”

Yu Qingjiao believes that the large-scale application of 4680 batteries is a great boost to the production and sales of ternary batteries. According to the information released by Tesla, lithium iron phosphate batteries mainly rely on Chinese suppliers to manufacture, while high-nickel ternary cells rely on their own teams, while promoting the manufacturing and development of original suppliers such as Panasonic. This may be tesla's bet on the future of power batteries and lay the groundwork.

Referring to the speed at which the 21700 replaces the 18650 cylindrical battery, the 21700 battery has occupied nearly half of the cylindrical battery market share 3 years after mass production. With the 4680 battery yield rate increasing to more than 90%, some analysts expect that the replacement speed may be further accelerated, and the ternary technology will be widely used in high-end passenger cars. In overseas markets, cylindrical batteries have a higher market share, and 4680 cylindrical batteries are led by Tesla, and the penetration rate is slightly ahead of Domestic.

To keep Tesla's take-off stock price, a beautiful report card is essential. Whether it's large castings, structural battery packs, or 4680 batteries, these projects can sustainably reduce Tesla's product costs, thereby increasing profit margins. The 4680 battery, which has entered the mass production stage, may be the "bridgehead" for Musk to open the situation.