Tesla's current leadership position in the global growing electric vehicle industry is largely related to its mastery of unique electric vehicle battery technology.
Currently, the industry believes that there are three major challenges in manufacturing applications of automotive lithium-ion batteries: energy density, cost and cycle life, and Tesla's excellent performance in dealing with these three challenges has enabled its power battery technology to achieve a leading position internationally.
First, the use of cylindrical lithium batteries of uniform size makes the cost lower. Tesla uses cylindrical battery as its electric vehicle battery specification, compared with other OEMs using multiple models of batteries produced by multiple battery manufacturers, the cylindrical battery design battery pack can gain several advantages such as creating efficiency improvement, flexibility and cost control.
GGII statistics show that in the first half of 2019, China's power battery installed capacity of 30.01GWh involves single cell specifications of up to 204 kinds. Among them, Ningde Time has 34 kinds of single cell specifications installed, ranking first in the industry, and the top ten enterprises applying single cell specifications total 124 kinds, accounting for about 61% of the overall.
From the total installed power of the specific specifications of the single cell, the top ten specifications are mainly square, occupying 7 kinds, 2 kinds of cylindrical type, and only 1 kind of soft package type.
And Tesla Model S/X and Model 3 only use Panasonic manufacturing 18650 and 21700 two standard battery cells, greatly improving the consistency of the battery cells and reducing the cost.
Even due to the soaring sales of new energy models, in May 2019, only one model, Model 3, consumed 16% of the global passenger electric vehicle battery capacity, all 21700 cells. If you count the Model X and Model S, the number of batteries used by Tesla in May 2019 reached 22% of the total, with only two types of cells, 18650 and 21700.
Currently, the Gigafactory 1 built by Tesla and Panasonic in Nevada, USA is producing 21700 cells for Model 3, with a planned full capacity of 35GWh, which is expected to reach full capacity in 2020, equivalent to 500,000 electric vehicles. By that time, 21700 cells will be the most used type of cells.
Second, the liquid-cooled thermal management system optimizes battery life. Unlike the air-cooled technology used by other OEMs, by adjusting the temperature of the battery pack, Tesla uses a liquid-cooled thermal management system to ensure that the battery operates at maximum efficiency and in an optimized state, thus maximizing battery life and performance.
Currently, liquid-cooled thermal management system is being used by more and more OEMs in newly developed new energy models, becoming an important initiative to improve the safety and service life of power batteries.
Third, the use of cobalt in lithium batteries is being actively reduced. The current cobalt content of the 21700 battery used in the Tesla Model 3 is already much lower than that of the lithium batteries carried by other electric vehicles, and Tesla is planning to reduce the cobalt content to zero.
Currently, Tesla is actively developing new battery technology that does not contain cobalt, while improving the energy density of the battery and not sacrificing service life to obtain a higher range, which coincides with the technical line of domestic battery companies to develop high nickel batteries.
In addition, Tesla also plans to find other partners or even develop and produce new batteries on its own. In May this year, Tesla acquired Maxwell Technologies, a California-based energy storage technology start-up, officially acquiring Maxwell's ultra-capacitor and dry electrode technology. This provides a guarantee that it will introduce new technologies and produce its own batteries for new battery development.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also confirmed recently that Tesla is preparing to use Maxwell battery technology to produce its own batteries, and does not even rule out the possibility of entering into the ranks of battery mineral collection in the future.
For Tesla, the integration of Maxwell technology into Tesla battery production is quite strategic, because the technology may help Tesla to obtain more advanced battery technology and further reduce battery costs, thereby enhancing its market position in the field of electric vehicles.
