Paul Morris·

Tesla Passes The 1 Million Mark In Next-Gen 4,680 Battery Cell Production

The official Tesla Twitter account has announced today recently that it successfully manufactured its one-millionth 4,680 battery cell in January of this year. Production of the million cells took place at the company’s Kato Road facility.

The announcement comes at the perfect time as Elon Musk’s Tesla prepares to start shipping the new Model Y model that comes equipped with the aforementioned 4,680 cell and its accompanying structural battery pack.

In September 2020, Tesla held a Battery Day event that was almost solely focused on announcing 4,680 battery cell. In the time that has followed, the company has managed to ramp up production and pass the one million mark.

Interestingly, although Tesla announced the creation of the 4,680 battery cell approximately 17-months ago, the company has managed to do what not a lot of tech companies can do in the modern world and keep most aspects of its production extremely secret. During that Battery Day event, Musk’s company waxed lyrical about the manufacturing capabilities of the pilot facility on Kato Road, claiming that the 4,680 battery cell would be produced in huge quantities for upcoming Tesla models. This announcement proves that the company wasn’t over-egging its capabilities.

Hitting the one million mark is indeed an important milestone for a factory that Tesla calls a “pilot” building but it doesn’t paint the full picture. The company’s current production rate is currently unknown, which means that it’s nearly impossible to predict and analyze just how many 4,680-equipped vehicles the company is capable of putting onto the road. Each Model Y has approximately 1 million 4,680 cells per car, which means that the company could put about 1,000 Model Y cars on the road based on the recent one million announcement.

Measuring in at just 80mm-by-46mm, the 4680 battery cells provide 5x the energy, 16% additional range, and 6x the power of previous battery technology that Tesla was using. With Model Y vehicles starting to ship imminently, here’s hoping that Tesla can ramp up production of the 4,680 to ensure that it doesn’t become a bottle-neck in the production of Tesla cars going forward.

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