On March 22, local time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk expected that next year's (electric vehicle) battery production will face "challenges", and batteries will become a "limiting factor" hindering Tesla's development in 2-3 years. At the same time, Musk said that Tesla will expand into other markets, adding new models after meeting existing market demand.
At the groundbreaking ceremony of Tesla's Berlin plant in Germany, Musk delivered the first 30 Model Y models manufactured at the Berlin plant to users. The official commissioning of the Berlin factory, which took two years and cost 5 billion euros, is a further expansion of Tesla's global production capacity and alleviates the pressure on delivery to a certain extent.
The Berlin Gigafactory will be dominated by electric vehicle production lines, supplemented by battery production, and is expected to reach a maximum annual capacity of 500,000 units. According to JPMorgan Chase, Tesla's Berlin plant will have a production capacity of about 54,000 vehicles in 2022, 280,000 units in 2023, and eventually reach an annual production capacity of 500,000 vehicles by 2025. With the start of operations at the Berlin plant, Tesla's total global production capacity will reach 2.7 million units.
Musk danced in the Berlin factory
Although musk danced with excitement at the groundbreaking ceremony, in his speech to employees, Musk still expressed concern about the problems Tesla is facing, believing that the industry needs to pay more attention to the battery supply chain.
Musk said the challenges in the coming years will be related to battery production and its supply chain, including raw material sourcing. "Last year, there were a lot of challenges in the chip supply chain, and this year there is still a shortage of chips, and I think battery production may face challenges next year."
"In the next two to three years, people will be worried about the megawatt hours (MWh) of battery production, the supply chain, and the speed at which battery materials will be mined and refined. In a way, the focus is on how many TWh (TWh) tesla can produce per year. "We roughly calculate that it will take about 300 terawatt hours to transform the world into a sustainable energy economy, which means a huge amount of 1 megawatt hour (MWh) = 1,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of batteries." ”
Batteries are the core components of electric vehicles, accounting for more than 40% of the total cost of the vehicle. With the outbreak of the new energy industry in recent years, the price of battery raw materials has been rising, making Tesla's business strategy of reducing costs and prices difficult to sustain.
At Battery Day 2020, Musk said that developing affordable mass-market electric vehicles "was a dream that the company had at the beginning of its founding." However, since the third quarter of 2021, Tesla has raised its price several times. In the past week or so, Tesla has announced three consecutive price increases, with a single price increase of 10,000 to 20,000 yuan for four models such as model 3 and Model Y, and the price of the model Y long-endurance version with the highest cumulative increase has exceeded 30,000 yuan.
At present, tesla's cheapest model Model 3 after-wheel drive version has risen to $47,000 in the United States and nearly 300,000 yuan in China, and its price attractiveness is gradually declining. Bernstein analyst Tony Sacconaghi analyzed that Tesla's sales will not grow at a rate of more than 50% per year without launching a $25,000 car.
Tesla's 2021 financial report disclosed in January showed that Tesla's global car deliveries in 2021 were 936,000 units, an increase of 87% year-on-year. In February, Musk said Tesla's car deliveries will continue to grow by more than 50 percent in 2022, meaning Tesla will deliver more than 1.4 million vehicles this year. Previously, Musk had also set a target of 20 million vehicles delivered annually by 2030.
In its 2021 earnings report, Tesla said it believes it can further address cost issues through manufacturing innovations and carefully planned products and factories. Manufacturing innovations include large castings, structural battery packs, 4680 batteries and other projects.
Tesla 4680 battery
Musk believes the 4680 battery is a "huge breakthrough" in technology that will make it possible for Tesla to produce electric cars that cost $25,000.
In September 2020, Tesla released the 4680 new cylindrical battery. The battery consists of 950 cells with an energy density of about 300 kWh/kg. Compared with the Panasonic 2170 battery previously used by Tesla, the 4680 battery is larger in size, with a capacity increase of 5 times and an output power increase of 6 times. It is expected to increase the vehicle's driving range by 16% and reduce costs by 14%.
In January, Tesla's pilot plant in Fremont, California, produced the 1 millionth 4680 battery, marking the official entry of the 4680 battery into mass production. Meanwhile, deliveries of the first Model Y models with 4680 batteries are expected to begin at the end of the quarter.
Tesla Berlin Gigafactory
Tesla's Berlin plant, which is currently in operation, has a 4680 battery pack production base in addition to the automobile production line. The first phase is designed to have a capacity of 50GWh per year and may be officially put into operation in the second to third quarters of this year. At present, the Model Y delivered at the Berlin factory is still equipped with 2170 batteries supplied by the Shanghai factory.
At the groundbreaking ceremony of the Berlin plant, Musk said he saw the potential of manganese-based cathodes in battery chemistry. At Tesla Battery Day 2020, Musk said that "it is relatively simple to make cathodes with two-thirds of nickel and one-third of manganese, which will allow us to generate more than 50% more battery capacity with the same amount of nickel." ”
At the same time, he also said that Tesla is trying to make batteries from more materials. For the foreseeable future, Tesla, like other companies in the industry, will focus on nickel-based chemicals for long-range cars and ferric phosphate for short-range cars.
Last month, Musk again stressed the importance of nickel. He believes that although it is called a lithium-ion battery, lithium accounts for only about 2% of the composition of the battery. Technically, it should be called a "nickel-graphite" battery, because the important component in the entire battery is nickel. On Tesla's latest quarterly conference call, Musk said: "Ask all miners to mine more nickel in an environmentally beneficial way and maintain an efficient supply, then Tesla will supply a sizable long-term big order." "