Welcome back everyone, I'm Jordan Geisigee and this is The Limiting Factor. In Tesla's Q4-2023 earnings call, Drew Baglino provided his usual quarterly update about the status of the 4680 RAM. Today, I'm going to break down what he said line by line and what the implications are. Additionally, in the past month or two, there have been some rumors and reports about the 4680 RAM that people have asked about. So I'll cover those as well.
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Drew started by saying, quote, First, I just want to allow any concerns regarding 4680 limiting the Cybertruck RAM because I've seen some people commenting about that.
Today, 4680 production is ahead of the RAM, with actually weeks of finished cell inventory, and the goal is to keep it that way, not only for the Cybertruck but for future vehicle programs. And as Elon said, it is an S-curve here too. It's hard to predict these things, but I'm just describing our goals.
End quote. What Drew's referring to here is an article by Reuters on the 21st of December, which was titled Tesla Cybertruck Deliveries Hostage to Battery Production Hell. As with any major battery news that relates to Tesla, the day the article came out, I provided a breakdown of it on X, which I'll link in the description. Needless to say, the Reuters article was clickbait journalism. It stated that the 4680 was currently at a run rate that could support 24,000 vehicles per year, which was based on publicly available information from the last earnings call in October. But when the Reuters article was written in December, the run rate for the Cybertruck was probably at less than 5,000 trucks per year, so the 4680 RAM clearly wasn't holding up the Cybertruck RAM. In fact, as Drew said, they actually have weeks of finished cell inventory to feed the Cybertruck RAM, and their goal is to keep it that way for not only the Cybertruck but future vehicle RAMs. Note that I don't think this means Tesla has imminent plans to start using the 4680 in other vehicles, just that Drew has confidence in the 4680 RAM. Lastly, it's worth emphasizing that Drew stated production RAMs are difficult to predict, and that he's just describing Tesla's goals. In other words, we should keep our expectations in check.
Elon jumped in at this point to build on what Drew was saying by adding that cell manufacturing is a hard problem, and that they're implementing a lot of new technology in the cell and with the manufacturing of the cell. I won't go through this line by line because Elon's made these comments before, and because I've made dozens of videos on the topic.
Drew's next comment was, quote, Texas successfully swapped line one from the model Y design of the cell to the Cybertruck design of the cell, which has the 10% energy density increase I mentioned before. To understand what Drew's saying here, let's do a quick recap of the two versions of the 4680 battery cell that Tesla's produced so far. The first is the generation one battery cell that was used in the model Y. The second is what I refer to as the generation two cell, and what Drew refers to as the Cybertruck cell, or the Cybertruck cell that has 10% higher energy density. As far as I'm aware, those are the only two versions of the 4680 that have been used in vehicles.
In my Q3 earnings call video, I said that my view was that line one at Giga Austin was producing the generation two cell, because the only images we have from Giga Austin show the generation two battery cell. And because of that, the second production line that began ramping in Q3 would be a cut and paste of line one. That is, my assumption was that in Q4, both line one and two would be producing the generation two cell, and that had two implications. The first was that line two would ramp relatively quickly because it was a cut and paste of line one. And the second was that line one could just continue building production volume. The result would be an S-curve that looks something like we see on screen, and the 4680 was about to hit the steep part of the S-curve.
However, what Drew told us in this earnings call is that line one hadn't yet been converted to the generation two cell. That comment initially worried me, because my assumption was that to convert from a generation one to a generation two cell, it would mean shutting the entire line down, replacing the necessary equipment, recalibrating all the machines for a different cell design, and slowly re-ramping production. But that interpretation appears to be incorrect based on the information Drew provided in the next comment. He said, quote, in terms of what we're doing, we're currently running one production line, one assembly line, using two assembly lines for yield rate and improvement trials, and we have a fourth in commissioning. And four more lines will be installed in Q3 this year, end quote.
When Drew says one production line and one assembly line, the production line likely refers to the electrode coating part of a cell line, and the assembly line likely refers to the rest of the cell line where the jelly roll is wound, inserted into the can, wetted with electrolyte, and the cell can seal. My understanding is that line one was the line that was responsible for the tens of millions of generation one cells Tesla produced last year, which is why I was concerned about a potential shutdown for re-tooling. However, based on Drew's delineation between production or coating and assembly, what may have happened over the last quarter is that the output of coating line one was diverted to the assembly line of cell line two, which was set up for the generation two cell for the cyber truck. That would have allowed Tesla to produce generation two cells for the cyber truck while converting the assembly line of line one to the generation two cell. That's as opposed to shutting down line one to convert to the generation two cell while at the same time ramping line two from scratch on the generation two cell, which would have negatively impacted the 4680 production ramp for longer.
So next, when Drew says that they have two assembly lines being used for yield and rate improvement trials, what that could mean is that they're still running coating on one line and then using two or three of the assembly lines for both trials and cells for the cyber truck. Why would they run just one coating line? If that coating line is producing enough material for the cyber truck ramp and it also has enough spare capacity for test runs for the other assembly lines, then there isn't yet a reason to start running the other coating lines. That's because if there's still challenges with the dry coating process, which is likely going to be ongoing until they hit full production, it's better to focus all their engineering resources on one machine and optimize that before spooling up the other coating lines.
With regards to Drew's comment that they have a fourth line in commissioning and four more will be installed starting in Q3, that's in line with the advice that Drew gave last quarter, which is that they intended to ramp the first four lines of phase one early this year and have the second set of four lines producing by the end of the year. That means they're still on track to have eight lines installed by the end of the year, each capable of 25 gigawatt hours for a total of 200 gigawatt hours.
As a side note, some people might question how I arrived at both phase one and phase two being 100 gigawatt hours each. It's because in the Q1 2021 earnings call, Tesla said they already had 100 gigawatt hours of equipment. The only building they had at that time that was geared for cell production and was near completion was giga Austin. So my assumption was that all of that equipment was installed as part of phase one. Then in the last quarterly earnings call, Drew advised that phase two involves another four lines that have greater capital efficiencies than phase one. So I've assumed that phase two is at least another 100 gigawatt hours.
With all that in mind, what's all this mean for the production ramp of the 4680? As I said last quarter, Tesla's not out of the woods yet. And we could see a situation where rather than seeing an S curve, the 4680 production ramp plateaued before continuing on. My assumption was that there could be potential technical challenges. Instead, it ended up being retooling that changed the shape of the S curve, which would cause a dip rather than a plateau. That means the new production S curve could look something like this. But we won't know whether that's the case until when or if Tesla celebrates another 10 million cell production milestone.
This also means that the projection I provided last quarter based on a 21% monthly growth rate in cell production also goes out the window.
这也意味着,我上个季度基于每月21%的细胞生产增长率所提供的预测也变得不准确。
Either way, all of this explains why Drew made the following comment. Quote, as with any major new production introduction, the factory and engineering teams collaborated to ensure the quality of the new design and process changes as their first priority.
And now our focus returns to cost and production ramp in Q1. And definitely this is a big year for ramping 4680. End quote.
现在我们的重点回归到第一季度的成本和产量扩大上了。毫无疑问,这是4680产能扩大的重要一年。
My read of what he's saying here is that the team was focused on retooling and recalibrating the assembly line on line one. And for line two, they were working the kinks out of the new generation two cell assembly process. But now that that's out of the way, they can scale aggressively.
Why is Drew so confident that it's going to be a big year? I'd speculate that it's because the coding system on line one already hit a run rate of about five gigawatt hours per year and the third quarter of last year.
And as I said in the last video, they may have done burst production rate tests before committing to further investment for the next four cell lines, which are currently under construction in Austin.
In the past few years, coding seemed to be the area where they were running into the most challenges and a cell assembly for the new cell design should, by comparison, be an easier challenge to solve. So if they have the coding problem solved, then the lines should ramp quickly.
The last comment about batteries was from Elon. He said, quote, we also expect to ramp orders from our suppliers. This is not about replacing our suppliers. It's about supplementing our suppliers, Panasonic CATL, LG and BYD end quote.
This aligns with what I've said in the past about Tesla's broader cell strategy. They're taking a multi-pronged approach to ensure cell supply and the 4680 is icing on the cake.
There are some people who view the 4680 as do or die, but as I've maintained over the years, in the short term, I view it as a chance for Tesla to maximize their growth potential, increase their profit margins and drive down the cost of their vehicles.
In the long term, the 4680 will become more essential when Tesla's in more direct competition with the likes of BYD. But that's about 5 to 10 years down the road and it's a video for another day.
On that note, as far as I'm aware, this is the first time that Teslas confirmed their buying cells from BYD, which were rumored to be used for their standard range vehicles in Europe.
The final point here on cell suppliers is that Tesla doesn't need in-house production of 4680 cells to build a $25,000 to $30,000 compact vehicle. Tesla's current cost of goods sold is a little over $36,000 per vehicle, and that's an average figure that includes vehicles that have sticker prices of over $100,000.
A compact vehicle will prioritize price and scalability over luxury and performance. It'll have a much lower bill of materials because it'll weigh less and have a smaller battery pack, and Tesla will be using a manufacturing process that's expected to cost at least 15 to 30 percent less.
So depending on the size of the vehicle and its features, even without 4680 cells, it'll probably have a production cost of $20,000 or less.
根据车辆的尺寸和特点来看,即使没有4680电池,它的生产成本可能也不会超过2万美元。
With the key points of the earnings call out of the way, let's look at two recent rumors that might come up in the comments. One of the rumors is bullish and the other bearish. Let's start with the bullish rumor.
A few weeks ago, Joe Tegmeier reported that there were rumors that Tesla's running trials to produce asymmetric electrodes and that they're also looking to shift the higher nickel cathode materials. The end goal is to increase the energy density of the 4680 by 10 to 20 percent.
If we go back to Drew's quotes from the earnings call, he also mentioned trials, but that they were focused on yield and rate improvement. That is, both Drew and Joe used the same wording. Trials. That doesn't necessarily mean the rumors from Joe were true, but given that the most logical next step to improve the 4680 cell is a higher nickel cathode, I think that part of the rumor is credible.
As for the asymmetric lamination rumor, it's more far-fetched and I'll be releasing a deep dive video on the topic in two weeks. Asymmetric electrodes turned out to be quite an interesting technical dive, and even if Tesla doesn't use the technology, I'm looking forward to sharing what I learned.
Let's move on to the bearish rumor. Last week, there was a report from Chinese sources on Weibo that Tesla's been expanding their 4680 production by importing cathode rolls from China.
Let's take a look at the history here to assess the rumor. For the generation 1 4680 cell, thanks to the teardown by UC San Diego, we know that the 4680 had electrodes that used a wet coating process.
However, in the past year, there were two indications that the 4680 was no longer using the wet-coated cathode and had switched to a dry-coated cathode. First, at Investor Day, they advised the people touring the line that they were coating both the cathode and anode at Austin. Given that there's no indication that Tesla has wet-coating equipment at Austin, the assumption was that both electrodes for the 4680 were now being coated with a dry process.
Second, when Sandy Monroe interviewed the executive team about the Cybertruck, Drew confirmed that the cybercell uses a dry process and that the electrode was produced in Austin. However, in both these cases, the wording wasn't explicit. For example, it's one thing to say a battery cell uses dry-coated material, but another to say both electrodes use dry-coated material. That is, there's room for doubt.
Unfortunately, that doubt will linger until we have a teardown of the generation 2 4680. As soon as the cell is available, I'll do my best to get my hands on one and put it through its paces.
In summary, it's likely that Tesla's currently experiencing a dip in production rate for the 4680 after upgrading the assembly lines in Texas to the generation 2 cell can. Overall, my view continues to be that Tesla isn't out of the woods yet with the 4680 ramp, but that the outlook is positive. That's because, as far as I can tell, the dry-coating process for the electrodes has already proven capable of hitting a run rate of 5 gigawatt-hours per year. And my understanding is that the dry-coating process is the part of the 4680 line that's the most difficult to master.
However, the progress at Austin continues to be somewhat of a black box, and although I do my best to interpret the quarterly updates, sometimes there are multiple interpretations, and this quarter was no exception.
Some people might rightly pose the question, what would it take for you to change your outlook from positive to negative? My response would be, if it turns out the generation 2 4680 cell is still using wet-coated cathode from China, Tesla as a company would be fine, but it would be a serious issue for the 4680 production system. But as we've seen in the past, most of the rumors about Tesla are often clickbait and untrue, so at this point there's no sense in hand-ringing until we have solid information one way or the other.
Finally, to leave things on a positive note, in the conversations I've had with Joe Tech Meyer, his read of the mood of the cell team at Giga Austin is that they're quote, absolutely giddy, end quote, about the 4680 ramp. So fingers crossed that that's a leading indicator of where things are headed for the year, but at the very least it's useful to know that the 4680 team is highly motivated.
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