Tesla's New Battery Chief Aims for Cost Cuts in Cybertruck, Model Y

Tesla recently parted ways with officials from several areas, including public policy, powertrain, and 4680 battery facility production.

Bonne Eggleston's Strategy for Reducing Battery Costs

Elon Musk may have thought that they were not delivering rapidly enough on critical manufacturer targets, and Tesla has now reportedly appointed a new leader of the 4680 battery development team, Netbook Check reported.

Bonne Eggleston will also be in charge of battery materials, and he has already set lofty targets for the 4680 cells that underpin so many of Tesla's deliverables.

Apparently, Tesla intends to reduce the cost of producing the battery used in the Model Y and Cybertruck. Mr. Eggleston informed the team that Tesla's production costs for the 4680 cells must be lower than those of Panasonic and LG by 2025.

"Our goal," Tesla's senior engineer Lars Moravy stated during the Q1 investor call, "is to beat supplier costs of nickel-based cells by the end of the year."

This might reduce Tesla's reliance on those suppliers while leaving the manufacturer with large federal tax credit subsidies, as opposed to the current situation where it must share those credits with Panasonic.

On the other hand, Tesla is not on track to meet its stated 50% 4680 battery cost reduction compared to more conventional batteries. The early 4680 batteries used in the Model Y structural pack only reduced production costs by roughly 20% by simply using the cell's bigger design and structural placement in the chassis.

Challenges and Opportunities with the 4680 Battery Innovation

The most difficult element, perfecting the dry-coated electrode production method, which makes the cells and manufacturing facilities considerably cheaper, may have only been accomplished with the Cybertruck and on a limited scale.

Tesla can only make 4680 battery packs for approximately 60,000 Cybertrucks annually, and it has yet to mass produce dry-coated battery electrodes.

Drew Baglino, a former executive in charge of powertrain and battery materials, is said to have been completely committed to the dry-coating approach. He wanted Tesla to make the 4680 battery as innovative as originally planned rather than scaling in an iterative manner as Elon Musk desired.

He even explained to Sandy Munro during his tour of the Cybertruck that the battery inside is made of dry-coated electrodes.

At the start of the year, however, Tesla set a less ambitious target for the 4680 team: merely make its batteries competitive with nickel cell suppliers, such as LG or Panasonic.

Tesla's new 4680 team leader intends to work on increasing yield and production capacity and lowering 4680 battery costs in whatever manner he can, eventually procuring cathodes from other sources. This may be a more feasible aim than mass production of dry-coated electrodes, and it is more likely to be completed by the end of the year.

Tesla feared that if it didn't meet this objective, it might abandon the 4680 battery project and just source cells from vendors. Team engineers are now concerned that even if Tesla can produce 4680 packs at a lower cost than Panasonic or LG, this will still fall short of the original 50% cost reduction goal.

Compared to other batteries used by Tesla, the 4680 packs have few advantages in terms of safety, endurance, or charging curve, therefore cutting its production cost remains critical to the project's feasibility.

Tesla's Race Against Global Battery Giants CATL and BYD

Tesla is racing against time since the world's largest EV battery manufacturers, CATL and BYD, can now create batteries for as little as $0.6 per Wh. The Cybertruck's cells will reportedly cost twice as much, even if Tesla meets its cost-cutting targets by the end of the year, as Bonne Eggleston is tasked with.

This may put competitive pressure on Cybertruck and Model Y costs, reducing the usefulness of the 4680 battery as a future route for Tesla's EV cost reduction.

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