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teslait may have launched the largest battery project in its 21 years of existence, and will develop and launch four new 4680 batteries at the same time.

technology media the information reported on thursday, october 3rd, eastern time, citing insiders that tesla has launched a battery project that has the most simultaneous research and development of batteries in the company’s history. it will design four new in-house batteries and plans to launch them in 2026. , powering the electric truck cybertruck, the upcoming robotaxi, and other electric vehicles.

four years ago, in september 2020, tesla released the 4690 model battery to create a battery that could both increase energy density and reduce costs. ceo musk said this battery will allow tesla to produce affordable electric cars priced at only $25,000. tesla later said that increasing 4680 battery production is the key to reducing the cost of the company's entire range of products.

the information reported on thursday that the 4680 development encountered trouble: tesla lost 70% to 80% of the cathode during trial production. the cathode, like the anode, is a key part of the battery and acts as a catcher of lithium ions. if a first-class manufacturer of traditional batteries produces batteries, the loss of batteries and components due to manufacturing defects is less than 2%.

tesla is working to produce a second-generation 4680 battery, known as the 4680d, that uses a dry electrode coating process to create the cathode, which can incorporate more active battery materials to increase energy storage by five times and increase power by six times, so it can increase the battery lasts longer range and power, reducing charging time. musk said the process would reduce battery manufacturing costs by 15% and reduce the use of toxic chemicals. in july this year, the 4680 battery using this innovative process ushered in a major breakthrough: for the first time, teslaCybertruckit uses self-developed dry cathode 4680 battery.

reports on thursday stated that despite the low production yield of dry cathode 4680d, tesla is still promoting the production of this battery, setting a goal of increasing the yield to 90% by the end of this year, and also plans to launch the second battery in 2025. achieve mass production in the quarter. by next year, tesla aims to produce 2,000 to 3,000 cybertrucks equipped with 4680d batteries per week, which is more than double the current production of cybertrucks using 4680 batteries.

the report mentioned that among the four follow-up versions of the dry cathode 4680 d batteries that tesla plans to launch in 2026, one is internally codenamed nc05 and is known as the "workhorse", which will be used in robotaxi. musk plans to reveal the battery when robotaxi is officially launched next week. in addition, the battery code-named nc20 will be used in suvs, cybertruck and other models. nc30 and nc50 will be tesla’s first batteries using silicon carbon materials in the anode. nc30 will be used in cybertruck and a sedan, and nc50 will be used in more focused applications. performance smaller cars, including the new generation roadster.

if the news is true, judging from the planned release time of the above-mentioned new battery, robotaxi will be launched in 2026 at the earliest.

according to the report, tesla hopes that more vertical integration will allow the company to customize its electric vehicles differently from its competitors. producing a range of different and cheaper new batteries could allow tesla to supply different types of cars in the future, and developing its own electric vehicle batteries would give tesla more flexibility when designing its cars.

from this perspective, producing self-developed batteries on its own is similar to apple creating self-developed chips specifically for the iphone.

currently, most of tesla's electric vehicle batteries are outsourced, mainly produced by china's catl, japan's panasonic and south korea's lg energy. last year, tesla Model Y and some versions of the cybertruck have launched a 4680 model that relies on traditional battery technology. since these versions of the car are sold in smaller quantities, tesla is producing less of its own batteries. because battery production is not enough to meet the needs of car models, tesla's self-developed batteries are now only used in the cybertruck.