While Tesla just announced its 20 millionth 4680 battery cell produced at Giga Texas, range challenges might have been behind the launch delay of the Cybertruck equipped with such cells. The first Cybertruck deliveries were supposed to start back in September.
Elon Musk’s emotional decision to ultimately go with the Cybertruck’s edgy design and unorthodox stainless steel build has been well documented by his biographer Walter Isaacson. The choice of build material, however, has reportedly presented additional challenges to Tesla’s engineers which might ultimately be behind the Cybertruck’s launch delay.
The extra weight of the stainless steel supplied by manufacturer Outokumpu for the body of the Cybertruck had reportedly thrown off Tesla’s promised range targets completely. So much so, that Tesla’s engineers tried various other ways to reduce the Cybertruck’s weight for months on end in order to reach their battery pack range goals. They swapped components for lighter ones or tried to shave off the ounces and pounds from Cybertruck parts with no alternative.
When announcing Tesla’s Q2 results, Elon Musk felt obliged to reiterate that the “Cybertruck has a lot of new technology in it, like a lot,” as if to hint why the self-imposed “end of Q3” Cybertruck delivery deadline came and went. The top tri-motor Cybertruck launch trim is likely the one that should land with Tesla’s promised 500-mile range on a charge and it has apparently not been easy for Tesla’s engineers to hit that with a stainless steel truck.
They also had to give up on the bulletproof glass promise as it made production costs balloon disproportionately, and that might explain why the Cybertruck is said to ship without said bulletproof glass.
In its Master Plan 3 unveiled earlier this year, Tesla lists the Cybertruck’s category as having a 100 kWh pack capacity on average. The Cybertruck’s battery may have to be even larger to accommodate the increased weight of the stainless steel compared to orthodox truck body materials, though, so Tesla will need a lot of 4680 cells for it.
The rate with which it moved from the 10 to 20 millionth cell produced at GigaTexas, however, tells that currently it can only make enough for a few hundred Cybertruck units per week even if the range challenges and other engineering conundrums have been fully sorted out.
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Daniel Zlatev – Tech Writer – 902 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021
Wooed by tech since the industrial espionage of Apple computers and the times of pixelized Nintendos, Daniel went and opened a gaming club when personal computers and consoles were still an expensive rarity. Nowadays, fascination is not with specs and speed but rather the lifestyle that computers in our pocket, house, and car have shoehorned us in, from the infinite scroll and the privacy hazards to authenticating every bit and move of our existence.
Daniel Zlatev, 2023-10-13 (Update: 2023-10-13)
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