The world’s greatest battery maker says Elon Musk’s 4680 cell ‘goes to fail’

Robin Zeng, the founding father of the world’s largest EV battery firm, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s massive wager on 4680 cylindrical cell expertise “goes to fail and by no means achieve success.” Zeng, the chairman of China’s Up to date Amperex Know-how (CATL), tells Reuters that when Musk visited China in April, “We had a really massive debate, and I confirmed him. He was silent. He doesn’t know easy methods to make a battery.”

Tesla’s “tabless” 4680 cells, that are utilized in a few of its automobiles, together with the Cybertruck, are presupposed to have “5 instances” extra vitality capability, and the corporate introduced in September it had produced 100 million of them. A current report by The Info mentioned Musk had given the crew engaged on the batteries an finish of the yr deadline to take care of prices and different issues.

CATL batteries, in the meantime, go inside every part from Tesla autos in China to Ford EVs in North America just like the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning. The corporate focuses on lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP), which typically don’t get as a lot vary as numerous cylindrical cell models utilized in many Tesla autos.

Whereas Zeng wasn’t impressed with Musk’s battery information, he thought he was good with chips, software program, {hardware}, and “mechanical issues.”

Zeng additionally commented that Musk’s drawback is “overpromising” timelines, which he typically does habitually, particularly relating to Full Self-Driving expertise. “Possibly one thing wants 5 years. However he says two years. I positively requested him why. He instructed me he needed to push individuals.”