Tesla has made some pretty big progress in the battery section of the business lately. Dry-cathode 4680 cells are on the horizon, and looking even further forward, Tesla’s battery manufacturing partners are looking into solid-state batteries.
The Limiting Factor (@LimitingThe on X), made an excellent video of a teardown of Tesla’s 4680 cell – one retrieved from Sandy Munro’s (Teardown Titan) Cybertruck. So, let’s take a look at some of the notable improvements over the generation 1 4680 cell that were noted.
Tesla calls the generation 2 cell the Cybercell – as it’s currently intended primarily for the Cybertruck.
4680 Improvements
Right off the bat, one of the biggest improvements is the weight of the 4680 shell itself – down to 49g from the 70g weight of a gen 1 cell. Tesla has essentially optimized the shell, making it thinner, and reducing its internal complexity. They do this by welding the tabless electrode to the cell cap.
That weight reduction is significant – at the battery pack level, the Cybertruck has 1,344 cells – which means that it reduces 28.2kg or 62.1lb of the overall pack weight. But rather than leaving that space empty, Tesla has instead filled that weight with more battery material. Calculated, that’s about a 10% increase in overall pack energy density.
The Limiting Factor intends to release another video looking at the energy density of the Cybercell and the detailed specs of the 4680 cell. We’ll be on the lookout for both of those videos in the coming weeks as they could reveal additional information on Tesla’s 4680 Gen 2 cells. We’re interested in how the Cybercell shapes up in comparison to the previous 4680 cells – which were pulled from production after the 4680 Model Y.
You can view The Limiting Factor’s video below:
