Teslamag was able to confirm that Tesla will produce the Model Y in Germany with a structural and module-less LFP (LiFePO4) battery from BYD. This is great news!
The battery is estimated to have a capacity of 55 kWh and provide a 440 km range in WLTP. Compared to the version with the 60 kWh battery from CATL that provides a 455 km range, the Model Y with BYD battery will weigh 66 kg less (2.087 instead of 2.153 kg) and the energy consumption will improve to 15,5 kWh/100 km.
However, we still don’t know if Tesla will use this opportunity to upgrade to a 800-volt system like the BYD Seal. Tesla already said that a change to 800 V would reduce costs.
In China, Tesla will continue to use CATL as a LFP battery supplier. However, this doesn’t mean that there will be no changes.
Avatr, whose biggest shareholders are Huawei and CATL, is about to launch its first model, the amazing Avatr 11. This is an electric SUV that has a 750-volt structural and CTP (cell to pack) battery made by CATL. Tesla will likely want to adopt the same advanced battery technology, with the difference of using LFP instead of NCM cells.
Finally, automakers that are serious about mass producing good electric cars should adopt simple 800-volt batteries that are structural, module-less and easy to repair like the one in the BYD Seal. This is the opposite of the unrepairable structural battery pack with 4680 format cells that Tesla recently introduced in the USA, which is an example of planned obsolescence and environmental crime that would make Apple proud.
Anyway, I hope that Tesla abandons its unrepairable and complex battery pack philosophy and adopts simple and repairable structural packs from BYD and CATL. It seems that it will be the case in Europe and China, but not North America, where Tesla produces the 4680 cylindrical cells.
What about you? Would you prefer an electric car from Tesla with the complex and unrepairable 4680 battery pack or a more simple pack made by BYD and CATL?
More info:
https://teslamag.de/news/exklusiv-tesla-eu-genehmigung-model-y-strukturellem-akku-byd-51652
https://cnevpost.com/2022/08/12/tesla-model-y-with-byd-batteries-has-received-eu-approval/
https://cnevpost.com/2022/08/10/byd-is-supplying-batteries-to-tesla/
