Welcome back everyone, I'm Jordan Geisigee, and this is The Limiting Factor. For over a year now, there's been ongoing rumors that the Tesla Model 3 would soon be using a new battery chemistry from CATL called M3P. According to the rumors, the M3P chemistry would increase the range of the Model 3 by around 10%.
In the past few months, the expectation of a battery pack upgrade has only become more intense since Tesla stated in their Q2 earnings call that they expect to have downtime this quarter for factory upgrades. So what exactly is the M3P chemistry, and will it be used in Tesla vehicles? Today I'll walk you through the sparse and often conflicting information that we have about M3P, its potential strengths and drawbacks, and based on that, if and when, it'll be used in Tesla vehicles.
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To understand the full story with CATL M3P, let's start from when it first entered public awareness. Last year, rumors started bubbling up that CATL was commercializing LMFP batteries with 15-20% higher energy density than LFP batteries. CATL immediately addressed the rumors, saying that the battery chemistry is actually called M3P, which is a different chemistry from LMFP.
Within a couple of weeks, more information cropped up, and according to Chinese media, an investigation report confirmed that the new chemistry isn't exactly an LMFP chemistry, but contains other elements. If my read of that is correct and the media report is correct, then M3P is LMFP with some additional dopants.
Let's work through the alphabet soup of acronyms to understand what all that means. First, what's the difference between an LFP chemistry and an LMFP chemistry? LMFP stands for Lithium Ferro-Fosfate, with Ferro of course being the Latin for iron, so lithium-iron phosphate. It's a high cycle life, moderate energy density chemistry that's often used for short to mid-range vehicles. LMFP uses the same crystal structure as LFP, but swaps out about half the iron atoms for M, or manganese atoms. Depending on how much manganese is added, it can increase the nominal voltage of the crystal structure by 15-20%.
LFP typically has a nominal voltage of about 3.2 volts, and with manganese added, it hits around 3.7 volts. That means an increase in maximum energy density from around 200Wh per kilogram to around 230 Wh per kilogram. The catch is that manganese has a tendency to dissolve in the electrolyte and react with the anode, and it also creates yawn-teller effects that distort the crystal structure. You don't need to know what a yawn-teller effect is today, I'll cover that in a future video. The key takeaway here is that manganese can increase energy density, but it can also severely handicap cycle life.
This brings us to CATL's M3P chemistry. As I said a moment ago, according to Chinese media, a CATL report stated that the M3P battery isn't exactly an LMFP chemistry, but contains other elements. What are those other elements? According to Shang-Gong Securities, they're magnesium, zinc, and aluminum. I don't know how reliable Shang-Gong's information is, but let's explore their claim. Magnesium, zinc, and aluminum are typically used as dopants in lithium-ion battery cathodes to increase cycling stability rather than to increase energy density. That is, CATL could be using those elements to help solve the cycle life issues created by adding manganese to the LFP crystal structure.
As a side note, based on this two-year-old slide from a CATL presentation, it appears they used to call their M3P chemistry LXFP. I say that because adding manganese is the most straightforward way to fill the X and LXFP to increase energy density to 210 to 230Wh per kilogram and 450 to 500Wh per liter. Notice that the volumetric energy density increase is only about 10% as opposed to the 15% increase for gravimetric. If that's correct and the current LFP packs are constrained by volumetric energy density, then M3P might only offer 10% more pack energy rather than the 15% suggested by the gravimetric energy density figure.
Interestingly, the M3P pack rumored for the Model 3 is said to offer a 10% increase in total energy. That may just be coincidence, but I thought it was worth noting because it may add credibility to the rumor.
Getting back on track, although we don't have definitive information from CATL on what M3P is, everything is pointing to an LFP crystal structure that makes use of manganese to increase voltage and that's doped with some other elements like magnesium, zinc, and aluminum to extend cycle life.
The question is, does that doping solve all the cycle life issues inherent in LMFP and what will it cost? We won't have the answer to those questions until CATL releases more information on the M3P battery, but I can offer some educated guesses.
With regards to cycle life, my view is that M3P will have a shorter cycle life than an LFP chemistry. The logic here is straightforward. As I said earlier, manganese is fundamentally unstable in battery cathodes. That is, even with doping agents added to increased stability, any amount of manganese added to the cathode will likely cause degradation that reduces battery life compared to a pure LFP cathode. I could be wrong here, but even if I'm right, an M3P has reduced cycle life compared to LFP, interestingly, it may not have a large effect on the commercial viability of the CATL M3P chemistry for vehicles. Let's take a closer look.
The key metric for battery cells for electric vehicles is volumetric energy density, whereas cycle life is usually the third most important metric. LFP is actually an overachiever here and is usually rated from 3,000 to 4,000 cycles as compared to the 1,200 or so cycles of a high nickel battery cell.
However, what's that in terms of the lifetime vehicle mileage after also taking into account the range differences between battery chemistries? Starting with LFP, a standard range Tesla Model 3 with an LFP battery pack starts with 272 miles of range. Let's say 270 to keep things simple. If that battery pack has good thermal management and software control, it could last over 800,000 miles. That's as compared to a nickel battery pack with 3 to 400 miles of range, which can last over 360,000 miles.
If M3P battery packs have 10% greater total energy than LFP battery packs, they'll be good for around 300 miles of range. If they can hit 2,000 cycles, that would mean around 600,000 miles of range over the life of the vehicle. Is that achievable? According to Taiko Run Energy, a Chinese battery supplier, it is. They estimate that emerging LMP-based chemistries are expected to last 2,000 cycles, which I take to include CATOM3P. I don't know where Taiko Run sourced that information because the report didn't include references, but I scrubbed through their 2022 LMP industry report and all the other information seemed to check out. In fact, in several instances, I found that the information used in the Taiko Run report sourced information from research papers that I had also bookmarked in my own research. If that 2,000 cycle figure is correct, M3P will be well suited to EVs.
However, it would be poorly suited to grid storage as compared to its more robust sister chemistry LFP.
然而,与其更强大的姊妹化学物质LFP相比,它在电网储能方面的适用性较差。
What about cost? The cost information was also difficult to track down because as far as I'm aware, CATL hasn't provided detailed information yet and because in some cases, the Chinese news sources were misreported by Western media outlets. Let's use this article from Electric as an example.
First, the subtitle in the article states that CATL's M3P batteries should cost less than LMFP. The only source they cite here is GASCO. If we look at the article from GASCO, it doesn't actually make any mention of the cost differential between M3P and LMFP chemistries. Instead, it mentions a cost differential between M3P and ternary lithium battery chemistries. Ternary means composed of three parts and ternary batteries refers to nickel-based batteries that use three metals. For example, nickel, manganese, and cobalt.
This brings us to the second thing that Electric's reporting gets wrong. The GASCO article states that the M3P chemistry will be lower cost compared to ternary batteries. If we flip back to the Electric article, it states that M3P batteries are supposed to be at cost parity with ternary lithium cells rather than lower cost. In short, GASCO reported that CATL appeared to suggest a cost hierarchy with LFP being the cheapest M3P slightly more expensive and NMC being the most expensive. That's as opposed to Electric's reporting that was so confusing that the cost hierarchy couldn't really be determined.
So what ended up happening is that many people just read what they wish to be true, or they ended up confused. As a side note, CATL wants the M3P battery chemistry to be considered the ternary lithium battery of the phosphate system. I thought I'd mention it here just in case the language takes hope, but hopefully it doesn't. People are already confused enough with LMFP, LXFP, and M3P, let alone giving M3P another name.
But is there any reliable information on the cost of CATL M3P or LMFP, not that I've found so far? However, we may be able to synthesize a reasonable guess from Chinese websites and hints from reporting on CATL. First, as I said a moment ago, CATL appeared to suggest a basic cost hierarchy where the cost of M3P falls between LFP and NMC type batteries. Second, TICO runs suggest that LMFP is 5-10% more expensive at the cathode active materials level than LFP. My understanding is that cost premium is due to the complex manufacturing processes which are required for LFP cathodes that incorporate manganese.
Those processes would be needed not just for LMFP cathode materials, but also likely M3P cathode materials. I'll talk more about that in a future video. Unfortunately, TICO run didn't specify whether the 5-10% more expensive number was in dollars per kilogram of material or dollars per kilowatt hour for material. I'm assuming it's dollars per kilowatt hour because it's a common apples-to-apples metric that takes into account both the cost of the materials and the energy density of the materials.
A 5-10% cost increase at the cathode active materials level for LMFP over LFP would mean that at the cell level LMFP cells would cost less than 5% more than LFP cells per kilowatt hour at scale. This is because the cathode is less than 40% of the total cell cost. TICO runs 5-10% cost increase estimate at the materials level is backed up by Chinese battery supplier Gobel, our third source for cost information. Gobel states that LMFP batteries are only about 5% more expensive than LFP batteries. Given the context, I'm assuming that means at the cell level, so it's roughly in line with the other sources.
Let's do a quick recap of the specs before moving on. LMFP-based chemistries like M3P will offer about 15-20% greater gravimetric and 10% greater volume energy density than LFP, but will have shorter cycle life by up to half and will cost about 5% more per kilowatt hour. Would those specs entice Tesla to use the M3P battery in a Model 3 or Model Y? The table on screen compares the different battery options for a mid-sized vehicle like the Model 3. As you can see, in terms of range, lifetime mileage and total pack cost, the M3P battery is a nice middle of the road option. It could provide 300 miles of range with 600,000 miles over the life of the vehicle at a packed price of about $8,700. That's less than the roughly $12,400 of a nickel pack, but more than the $7,600 of an LFP pack.
It's worth taking a moment to point out here that people seem to be assuming that because M3P batteries have higher energy density, which allows for higher energy battery packs, it automatically means we'll see vehicles with higher range. That logic fails to take into account that although yes, you can fit more kilowatt hours of cells under the vehicle, each of those kilowatt hours still have an incremental cost. So you can leverage that extra energy density for a pack that contains more energy, but it's not free. In the case of M3P, after taking into account the slight cost premium, it'll cost about 15% or almost $1,200 more than the LFP pack. However, there may be a loophole here that took me about 6 months to realize. More on that in a moment.
Now that we've covered energy density, cycle life and cost, let's look at one more aspect of M3P that's often neglected, but that Elon pointed out about 18 months ago on X. We have to take into account that because M3P batteries operate at a higher voltage than LFP batteries, they'll use less lithium. Higher voltage means each lithium ion packs more of a punch, so less lithium is required per kilowatt hour of batteries, roughly 15% less lithium. That means Tesla can produce 15% more vehicles with the same amount of lithium, which means about 15% more revenue per unit of lithium. That is, if Tesla used M3P batteries, they might be in a position where they sacrifice 5% profit at the battery level, which is about 2% at the vehicle level in favor of 15% higher revenues and 15% more vehicles on the road.
Before we move on to CATL's production plans, it's worth mentioning two additional side notes on cost. If M3P batteries use about 15% less lithium, they'll have less sensitivity to lithium prices than LFP batteries. That means even though M3P has higher production costs, the materials cost could end up being lower than an LFP battery and become dominant. If that happened during those price spike events, M3P batteries would actually be cheaper on a per kilowatt hour basis than LFP batteries despite the higher production costs. This is similar to what happened during the last price spike when LFP batteries ended up costing more than high nickel batteries despite nickel costing significantly more than iron.
Second, even though most of the rumors around M3P have been in relation to the standard range Model 3, M3P is actually a much better candidate for Tesla's vehicles that use high nickel battery packs. How would that be possible if M3P only appears to offer 10% greater volumetric energy density rather than the 20 to 30% required for longer range vehicles? If Tesla combines the M3P chemistry with new pack technologies that offer much higher packing density like the 4680 structural pack or CATL's cheelene pack, for an equivalent pack area they could not only match the pack energy of a high nickel battery pack but potentially exceed it by 29 to 50%. That would mean a range of up to around 500 miles. Bear in mind what we see on screen is mostly based on marketing material. So in reality, each of these figures would probably be about 100 miles less. But even with that 100 mile nerf, M3P should still be capable of delivering at least 400 miles of range with new pack technology. Regardless, the key takeaway here is that replacing nickel battery packs for most long range vehicles with an M3P battery pack should save 15% or almost $1,500 per vehicle.
As the kicker, beyond the cost benefits of replacing a nickel battery pack with M3P, the battery pack would be safer and have longer cycle life because M3P is a more stable chemistry. That is, M3P could be a triple win vs nickel battery packs, cheaper, safer and longer lasting. To me, that makes more sense than replacing cheaper LFP battery packs in the 270 to 280 mile range category with a more expensive battery pack that has similar safety to LFP and likely shorter cycle life.
Finally, if Tesla does decide to use CATOM3P batteries, when could that happen? Every time CATOs launched a new battery pack or chemistry in the past, they've held a launch event to showcase its features. Let's look at three examples. First, they launched their sodium ion batteries in 2021, which they estimated would start production this year. So far, that hasn't happened. Second, they launched the Chilin battery pack last year, which started being used in the ZEAKER001 earlier this year. Third, just last week, they launched the new fast charging Shenxing battery, which is expected to start going into vehicles early next year. That is, CATL usually holds a launch event at least six months before the new battery or chemistry shows up in products. They have advised that the M3P batteries are expected to debut this year, but so far, there's been no launch event. That may mean we won't see M3P batteries in vehicles until sometime next year, even if it launched within the next few weeks.
In summary, to answer the question posed at the beginning of the video, will CATL's M3P chemistry be used in Tesla vehicles? In the short term, it looks like a low likelihood, because the chemistry hasn't officially launched yet, and there's no other indications that CATL has reached volume production with M3P. However, in the longer term, I expect Tesla to increasingly use M3P or some other variant of LMFP. M3P should have most of the benefits of an LFP chemistry, including a relatively low cost, high safety, and high cycle life, but will have higher energy density and use less lithium per kilowatt hour. That would be perfect for a mid to long range vehicle. I'm sure some other people are also curious about whether it could be used for robo-taxis. In my view, that comes down to whether it can match the ultra-long cycle life of LFP. If it can't, then I suspect LFP will be better suited to robo-taxis because cycle life will be more important than range. In the next video of the LFP series, which this video is part of, I will cover the science behind the M3P chemistry. But before that, I'll be releasing one or two more sections of the global lithium supply chain video. If you enjoyed this video, please consider supporting the channel by using the links in the description. A special thanks to Darren Emmerich and Ted Wonderlook for your generous support of the channel, my YouTube members, ex-subscribers, and all the patrons listed in the credits. I appreciate all your support, and thanks for tuning in.