First Cybertruck 4680 battery teardown shows how Tesla managed to increase its energy density

Tesla's second generation 4680 batteryin the Cybertruck has been taken apart to reveal many improvements over the first generation that used to be installed as a structural battery pack in the Model Y.

The Model Y's 4680 battery cell has244 Wh/kg energy density, which is actually lower than the 269 Wh/kg of the 2170 Panasonic cells that Tesla puts in its long-range models.

This, and lower production yields at the time, may have been the reason why Tesla stopped powering the Texas-made Model Y with first-gen 4680 cells, and developed a second generation dedicated solely to the Cybertruck. It was dubbed the Cybercell, and Tesla mentioned that it has 10% higher energy density, which puts it in line with the 2170 cells.

That same second-gen 4680 cell is now being torn down and analyzed by an energy storage research lab at UC San Diego, revealing how Tesla managed to make it lighter and cheaper to produce than the first generation.

It turns out that at least some of the 10% increase in the Cybertruck's 4680 battery energy density comes from making the cell much lighter than before. Tesla made the cell can thinner and welded the lid directly to it, along with the tabless electrodes. This helped it eschew several other components like the plastic gasket and the copper current collector, making the cell 30% lighter overall.

The researchers will now focus on analyzing the cathode for its nickel content and calculate the overall energy density of the Cybertruck's 4680 battery, with results hopefully arriving in two weeks.

During the annual shareholder meeting, Elon Musk said that Tesla has until the end of this year to make its 4680 battery cell costs commensurate with those of its other suppliers likePanasonic, or it may as well source it from them.

It has taken a big step towards that goal by outing the first production line Cybertruck with dry-cathode 4680 cells. Tesla has been trying to crack the much cheaper dry electrode production method for years now, and it has seemingly succeeded.

It is still not clear at what scale can it produce those cells, though, so for now the Cybertruck is being manufactured en masse with the second generation 4680 battery that just got torn down to reveal the manufacturing efficiencies that have resulted in an increase of its energy density.

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