This article is from the WeChat public account: Geek Car (ID: GeekCar) , author: James Yang Jianwen

Tesla’s self-developed battery has new actions and progress.

According to Electrek, Tesla is piloting a battery production line in Fremont, USA, and plans to use its own equipment to produce batteries, which means that Tesla’s self-developed batteries will finally be available.

I do n’t know if you still remember? In June 2019, a secret laboratory called “skunkworks lab” at Tesla’s Kato Road (Transliteration Kato Road) was exposed, here It is the place where Tesla uses for battery design and research on battery production processes.

The lab is located in Fremont, just minutes from the Tesla factory. That’s right, everything is such a “coincidence”.

Tesla brand battery

Tesla ’s self-developed battery ambitions have really begun to “expose”, starting last year.

putTime pulled back a year ago. In February 2019, Tesla announced the acquisition of Maxwell.

What does this company do? Generally speaking, it is researching battery technology. Its dry electrode technology can increase the energy density of the battery cell to more than 300Wh / kg, and it may increase it to 500Wh / kg in the future. At the same time, Maxwell claims that after 1500 cycles of charging and discharging, its battery still has 90% capacity.

To put it bluntly, its technology can optimize battery performance and thus significantly increase the range of electric vehicles. The acquisition of such a company has caused constant suspicion.

Now when we open Maxwell’s official website, the publicity map related to Tesla is in sight. As CEO, Musk commented on Maxwell’s battery technology: “We think this is a strategic technology that will have a huge impact on the cost and scale of battery production-both cost and scale production Required funds. “

Also in February 2019, a Tesla battery research team led by battery expert Jeff Dahn (Dane) applied for a A patent for new battery chemistry, which can provide batteries with faster charging speed, longer life and lower cost. This technology can be used not only for energy storage, but also for electric vehicles.

These two things add up, and everyone starts thinking.

And at the next shareholder meeting in June 2019, when the fashionable Tesla CTO JB Straubel talked about “large-scale solutions for battery production”, he used the word “battery cell production “Instead of” battery production “. Tesla Vice President of Technology Drew Baglino bluntly, (Tesla) hopes to become a “master of their own destiny (self destiny palm 者) “. At the same time, he said that “learned a lot from partners”, and now there are “solutions”.

This hint is already obvious. Tesla wants to make its own batteries and be its own master. For a long time, the “love” of Tesla and battery partner Panasonic has been well known to the world.

JB Straubel, who has left,

But Tesla’s footsteps haven’t stopped. From battery design to manufacturing, Musk wants to take full control of himself. In October 2019, Tesla acquired (HIBAR SYSTEM LIMITED) , which is a precision metering pump. , Injection system and battery manufacturing system.

Over the past 40 years, Hibar has become the preferred supplier of primary and secondary battery production lines in the battery industry. With the acquisition of this company, Tesla will also complete the most basic production capabilities, and it will be able to “call the Shenlong (produce its own batteries) “.

Million Miles Life

So, here comes the problem.What is the performance of Tesla brand batteries? This is the topic that everyone is most concerned about.

At the Tesla Autonomous Driving Day in April last year, the self-developed self-driving chip was hidden. At the same time, when talking about his “ROBOTAXI” grand plan, Musk announced that Tesla will be able to run as soon as next year (2020) “Million Miles” of battery. Here’s a comparison: the drive and body design of the Model 3 is a bit like a commercial truck, with a design life of one million miles, but the current battery pack life is “only” 300,000 to 500,000 miles. (1500 charge and discharge cycles) , that is to say, Tesla hopes to make a battery that can match the life of the entire vehicle.

Of course, Musk isn’t saying hi. Remember the battery team led by Jeff Dahn mentioned earlier? In September 2019, Dahn Labs published a paper describing how to make Musk’s dream battery.

Dahn wrote in the paper:

We conclude that cells of this type should be able to power an electric vehicle for over 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) and last at least two decades in grid energy storage.

We have come to the conclusion that the battery life can exceedAfter 1.6 million kilometers, it can be used in energy storage devices for 20 years.

In December 2019, Tesla officially obtained the patent through “Tesla Motors of Canada”.

Next, let ’s go back to the latest news of these two days: Tesla has set up such a battery pilot production line in Fremont.

One more interesting point: Tesla’s battery patent is for NCM (The battery cathode material is nickel-cobalt-manganese) span>, and now Tesla uses NCA (nickel-cobalt-aluminum) cells. However, Tesla ’s two new battery partners Ningde Times and LG Chem are using NCM batteries, so Tesla will likely switch to NCM in the future.

Coming soon

From the information released so far, Tesla has integrated the technology and resources of several acquired companies, and self-developed cells are ready. Once the trial production progresses smoothly, Tesla batteries Will be officially launched.

Before, we wrote an article in which we reviewed the past of Tesla and Panasonic. The relationship from the beginning of the golden partner to the present is tense, and I really sigh. Now, besides Panasonic, Tesla has Ningde Times and LG Chem beside it.

However, giving Musk such an important hole card is controlled by others. This is not allowed by Musk, who has a strong desire for control. Previously, due to the limited production capacity of Panasonic’s batteries, Tesla’s capacity climbed. “Boom” on Twitter; plus new products that have a huge demand for batteries (such as Semi, new generation Roadster, Cyberbertuck, etc.) , special Sierra needs to increase battery capacity while reducing costs …

It is imperative to realize self-development and self-production of batteries.

Musk said this at the shareholders meeting last year:

investors ought to look out for two things in the coming year: battery availability and advancements in full self-driving.

In the coming year, investors should focus on two things: battery availability and advances in autonomous driving technology.

This actually implies self-development of the battery. In terms of autonomous driving, Tesla has dug a big pit of “million Robotaxi on the road”. Next, we should pay more attention to Tesla’s battery.

The answer may be revealed on “Tesla Battery Day” in April this year.

I hope that when Musk can translate for us, what exactly is a surprise?

This article is from WeChat public account: Geek Car (ID: GeekCar) , author: James Yang Jianwen