Welcome back everyone, I'm Jordan Geesege and this is The Limiting Factor. As usual, this quarter there's been some anxiety-inducing clickbait reporting on the status and future of the 4680 ramp, which wasn't helped by the departure of Drew Baglino, who's been the figurehead for the 4680 ramp. So today, I'll do my best to separate fact from fiction by looking at Tesla's advice from the Q1 earnings call. In short, Tesla appears just as committed as ever to the 4680 ramp, but they still have a long way to go before they achieve the scale and cost targets from Battery Day. Let's get into it. Before we begin, a special thanks to my Patreon supporters, YouTube members and Twitter subscribers, as well as RebellionAir.com. They specialize in helping investors manage concentrated positions. RebellionAir can help with covered calls, risk management, and creating a money master planned from your financial first principles.
Let's start with the rumor mill and the reason for the title of the video. There was a light post article titled, Tesla's Major Adjustment, the disaster brought by going all in and solving it by going all in. That article was a meandering series of points on a number of topics, but on the topic of batteries, the key points were as follows. First, Tesla is sourcing cells from other suppliers. Second, some employees expressed pessimism about the 4680. Third, Drew Baglino resigned, who was VP of Powertrain and Energy Engineering at Tesla. Based on those three points, the conclusion of the article was that the 4680 was headed for a phased failure. The issue is that Tesla has always sourced battery cells from other suppliers that you can always find a disgruntled employee, especially on a week where Tesla announced mass layoffs, and that executives have to leave at some point. Correlation does not mean causation. That means there appeared to be no real proof supporting the claim that the 4680 was headed for a phased failure. My impression is that the author simply raised a series of points that would stoke anxiety and tied it all together by making an unsubstantiated claim. In other words, it seemed like clickbait. But even so, I was looking forward to the earnings call to see if Tesla's tone had changed on the 4680 project.
With that, let's get into the comments from the earnings call. The first comment was from Lars Moravie, who said, quote, 4680 production increased 18 to 20% over Q4, reaching 1,000 packs per week for Cybertruck, which is about 7 gigawatt hours per year. We expect to stay ahead of the Cybertruck ramp with cell production throughout Q2 as we ramp the third and fourth lines in Phase 1, while maintaining several weeks of cell inventory to make sure we're ahead of the Cybertruck ramp. Because we're ramping, Cogs continue to drop rapidly week over week, driven by yield improvements throughout the lines and by production volume increases. Our goal, and we expect to do this, is to beat supplier-based costs of nickel-based cells by the end of the year, end quote.
This is probably the most straightforward update we've had on the 4680 ramp, and it requires no translation. However, as usual, I'll add some color and context to what Lars said. First, last quarter Tesla advised that they had to retool the lines for the switch from the generation 1 4680 cell to the generation 2 4680 cell, which meant that production scaling had likely seen a setback but would rebound quickly. As a refresher, in October of last year, Tesla had reached a run rate of 5 gigawatt hours per year, and after retooling to move from the generation 1 to the generation 2 cell, they're now up to 7 gigawatt hours per year.
Second, Lars said lines 3 and 4 are ramping. However, he didn't clarify what he meant by lines. For example, the electrode coating lines, the assembly lines, or both. Last quarter, Drew seemed to indicate that they were using one coating line and three assembly lines. I'm assuming that what Lars is saying this quarter is that they're still using one coating line and now have four assembly lines running. Third, Lars said production increased 18 to 20% over Q4 to 7 gigawatt hours per year. If that trend continued on a quarter-over-quarter basis, that would mean only about 10 gigawatt hours per year by the third quarter, which is enough for a little over 81,000 Cybertrucks per year. If that happened, the Cybertruck ramp would likely get ahead of the 4680 ramp.
However, it's difficult to know why the increase in production rate was only 18 to 20%. For example, it could have been because they were focused on dialing in assembly lines 3 and 4 rather than running production through the more mature lines 1 and 2. Or it could be that they feel confident in their ability to increase output. And so rather than focusing solely on output, are more focused on improving yield rate. Either way, at least for this quarter, they've stated that they can keep ahead of the Cybertruck ramp. If that's the case, the next most important factor is cost. That brings us to the fourth point on Lars' comments, which is that he expects the cost of Tesla's in-house 4680 cells to be lower than the cost of cells from third-party suppliers by the end of the year.
Lars didn't specify if that included the $45 per kilowatt hour inflation reduction act tax credits. But I'm assuming it didn't include the tax credits. If that's the case, I'd guess that they're looking at a pre-tax credit cost target of about $90 per kilowatt hour or less by the end of the year at the cell level, and around $110 per kilowatt hour or less at the pack level. If they're able to achieve that, I suspect the next cost target will be $70 per kilowatt hour at the cell level.
Which Elon suggested 18 months ago in the Q3 2022 earnings call. But that, of course, likely wouldn't happen until sometime next year. Now that we've covered the key points for the 4680 ramp, let's take a look at the broader strategic picture for the 4680. Towards the end of the earnings call, Elon said, quote, we're making good progress on the 4680 ramp. But I don't think it's super important in the near term, and quote, here, Elon is providing the same advice that I've been giving for a few years now, which is that currently the 4680 isn't mission critical.
It'll be a great competitive advantage in the future after EVs have gobbled up most of the internal combustion market share. But that won't happen until later this decade. Until then, there's plenty of self-supply on the market to meet Tesla's needs. As I've said in the past, Tesla can take straw and weave it into gold. That is, they can take battery cells from any major cell manufacturer, put them in a vehicle, and turn a profit on that vehicle. Lars followed up on Elon's comment by saying, quote, it's important to note that the ramp right now is relevant to the Cybertruck ramp. We're not just going to randomly build 4680s unless we have a place to put them. We also have a lot of investments with all our cell suppliers and vendors. They're great partners, and they've done great development work with us, and a lot of the advancements in technologies and chemistry they're also putting into their cells, end quote.
That is, as long as the 4680 ramp can support the Cybertruck ramp, it's meeting Tesla's current needs, and for other uses, there's plenty of self-supply available from other suppliers. However, I do think while that's true, it's underplaying how useful a greater supply of 4680 cells could be. If Tesla had ramp the production lines quicker, and, for example, put those cells in the Model 3, the Model 3 would currently cost about $7,500 less in North America, and on the back end, they'd be getting millions of dollars of inflation reduction tax credits. That is, at this point, although the 4680 is only critical for the Cybertruck ramp, Tesla's certainly missing out on a lot of potential vehicle sales and profits by not using the 4680 cells in more vehicles. So, although Lars says they wouldn't randomly build 4680s unless they had a place to put them, to me, it looks like there are places Tesla could put them. So, what's going on here? My guess is that for the time being, they're confident that they can keep ahead of the Cybertruck ramp, but they're not confident that they could ramp the 4680 lines enough to support another vehicle model or trim. Other possibilities include that even with the IRA tax credits, the 4680 cells would still be more expensive than 2170s or prismatic cells, or that they're locked into contracts with suppliers and can't displace the cells in their current vehicles with 4680s. As for the comment about Tesla doing great development work with their cell suppliers and the advancements in technologies and chemistries that they're putting into their cells, my view is that they're talking about the road maps that every cell manufacturer has to reduce cobalt consumption, increase silicon content, and extend cycle life.
There is probably some technology and tip sharing between the companies, but I doubt that Panasonic, for example, will be using Tesla's dry battery electrode coating process in their 4680 cells. Next, Elon said, quote, a big part of the 4680 and Tesla doing internal cells was a hedge against what would happen with our suppliers, because for a while, it was very difficult because every car maker put in massive battery orders, and so the price per kilowatt hour of lithium ion batteries went to crazy numbers, crazy levels. The orders from other automakers have declined dramatically. Tesla's seeing much more competitive prices from our suppliers. It's clear that a lot of suppliers have excess capacity, and quote, this was one of the most exciting things that was set in the earnings call. From the beginning of this channel four years ago, I raised the point that it might be too late for other western manufacturers to compete with Tesla, because Tesla had gained a first mover advantage. That's because even after going all in on EVs, it took Tesla over a decade to become truly profitable. And for other western automakers to do the same in EVs, it would take them at least five years to catch up.
I also stressed that Tesla was constantly improving their efficiency, so that five year lead might continue. That's turned out to be the case, and it appears that will lead well continue into Tesla's next generation of vehicles. With the exception of BYD, other EV manufacturers have attempted to compete, but still haven't been able to produce EVs profitably, which Tesla was able to do five years ago. Not only that, it's gone so bad for other manufacturers that they're regressing by pulling back on their EV plans and retreating to hybrid vehicles. That may help keep them afloat for a few years, but ultimately, the first principal's efficiency and benefits of EVs will win out.
In the meantime, all the battery cells that other western manufacturers ordered up but didn't use have created an oversupply of cell production capacity. That means lower cell prices for Tesla. The combination of Tesla's lower cell prices and Tesla's upcoming budget vehicles will only enhance Tesla's profits and scale and therefore competitiveness. So if Tesla comes out with a fully electric vehicle that's more appealing and lower cost than a hybrid, they'll sweep the table. As a side note, in my global lithium supply chain video, I said that Tesla might run into lithium supply issues somewhere between 2026 and 2028. I now no longer view that as likely.
However, it's not because I failed to assume that Tesla would eat the lunch of every other western automaker. I did. It's because Tesla didn't grow 50% last year, won't grow 50% this year, and probably won't grow 50% next year either. Whereas, in the global lithium supply chain video, to address the bull argument, I assume that Tesla would continue growing at a steady 50% per year. Since Tesla's growth rate has now dipped below that for at least a couple of years, any potential collision with lithium supply may not occur this decade, if at all. Moving along, the next comment was from, I believe, Karn Budiraj.
Quote, What 4680 did for us from a supply chain perspective is help us understand the supply chain upstream of our cell suppliers. A lot of the deals that we struck for the 4680, we can also supply those materials to our partners, reducing the overall cost back to Tesla. We're basically inserting ourselves into the upstream supply chain by doing that. That's also been beneficial in reducing the overall pricing in addition to the excess capacity that these suppliers have. End quote, that is, even though the speed of the 4680 ramp has been disappointing, the 4680 project is still having a positive impact on reducing cell costs from other suppliers and giving them greater control over the raw material supply chain.
The next comment from Elon was quote, there are additional complications with government incentives like the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA. It does complicate the incentive structure so that there's perhaps stronger demand for cells that are produced in the US than outside the US. But then how long does the IRA last? I don't know. End quote. To which Lars added quote, which is why it's important that we have in-house cells to hedge against all of this end quote, what Elon and the team are communicating here is that Tesla is positioning itself as best it can, regardless of what's happening with government incentives. So although potentially lucrative, the IRA tax credits are also causing market distortions and uncertainty. Let's look at two examples.
First, as Elon pointed out on X, one of the impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act or IRA tax credits is that the rules around the tax credits have changed much faster than it's possible to change a massive supply chain and production system. That's probably one of the reasons why the Model Y is now effectively cheaper than the Model 3 after tax credits, despite the Model Y being a vehicle that should cost thousands of dollars more. Besides the fact that Tesla's in-house 4680 ramp is progressing slowly, Tesla simply hasn't been able to adapt the supply chain quickly enough to get tax credit eligible cells and packs from any source into the Model 3.
Second, what if Tesla rebuilt their supply chain in a way that's fundamentally less efficient but allows them to earn money from IRA tax credits? Then a new administration reversed them later this year or next year. That could mean over time millions or billions of dollars wasted reorganizing the supply chain only to have it be less efficient overall. What that means is it may not be worth it for Tesla to go too far out of their way to chase tax credits and to only pursue them when it roughly aligns with their existing plans. For example, currently Tesla appears to be manufacturing some cell components in Germany and shipping them to the US to be assembled. Normally that might not make economic sense but with the IRA tax credits it does.
That's because the credits are to assemble the cells regardless of where the components came from. But Tesla had plans to build cell production in Germany anyways so shipping the components to the US doesn't fundamentally alter those plans. It may just be delaying them. In summary, despite the fact that there were news reports that the 4680 is headed for failure, the team at Tesla is indicating the opposite. First, they're continuing to ramp the new lines at Austin. Second, they have cost target goals to reach cost parity with external battery cells by the end of the year. Third, they stated that it's important to hedge against potential changes in cell supply and incentives. Fourth, by inserting themselves into the supply chain to supply their 4680 ramp, it's saving them money on their third party supplied cells.
Fifth, in the slide deck for the earnings call, Tesla placed the 4680 cell at the base of their ecosystem. With all that said, the 4680 ramp is still grinding rather than skipping along. First, in order to keep up with the Cybertruck ramp, they're using at least one coding line and four assembly lines. Those assembly lines in total have an annual production capacity of about 100 gigawatt hours, whereas they're currently producing only 7 gigawatt hours. So at least for the time being, Tesla appears to be leveraging extra assembly lines to make up for low output. Second, the delays with the 4680 ramp are limiting Tesla's ability to access IRA tax credits, which would reduce the price of the Model 3 by about $7,500 on the customer end and earn Tesla millions in production tax credits.
As a final point, quite a few people have been asking what's limiting the ramp of the megapacks. According to Mike Snyder, the megapack ramp hasn't been limited. He also said that they have ordered visibility 12 to 24 months out, and they plan the build out of the project's several quarters in advance, which allows them to ramp the factory to align with business and order growth. My read of this is that ramping megapack production isn't a limiting factor for Tesla. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some bottlenecks turning orders into projects, which involves permitting grid connection queues and queues for transformers, which are currently experiencing a shortage.
Rohan Patel was working on the permitting and interconnect queue side of things, and now it appears that torch has been passed to Patrick Bean. So despite the recent executive layoffs, Tesla has a deep bench and will continue to work on expanding their megapack pipeline and the speed that they can deploy projects. If you enjoyed this video, please consider supporting the channel by using the links in the description. Also consider following me on X. I often use X as a testbed for sharing ideas, and X subscribers like my Patreon supporters generally get access to my videos a week early. On that note, a special thanks to my YouTube members, X subscribers, and all the other patrons listed in the credits. I appreciate all of your support, and thanks for tuning in.