Tesla’s Giga Berlin-Brandenburg plant in Grunheide in Germany is humming with activities. The manufacturing of the Tesla Semi, the long-delayed electric truck that the company recently announced would ship by the end of this year, is taking place at this plant. While Tesla semis would roll out from the factory what’s coming in BYD’s flagship blade batteries (long cells, LFP chemistry). With the first batch already delivered, cars carrying this brand-new technology would start rolling out from the factory by the end of this month. This means we would soon see entry-level Tesla Model Y with LFP batteries.

Before Tesla struck this deal with BYD, LFP batteries for Tesla models manufactured in China and California were provided by CATL. In Germany, Tesla till now produced cars equipped with 2170-type cylindrical battery cells (from LG Energy Solution’s Chinese plant). However, all the batteries that would be used now in the cars that roll out from Gige Berlin would most likely constitute a test batch, going by BYD’s battery unit FinDremas’ claim that mass use of BYD’s blade batteries by Tesla would not be seen until next year.

Tesla Shanghai produces Model 3 and Model Y and when it reaches its full capacity of manufacturing, which is not so far now, it will produce 750,000 cars per year. However, the Shanghai plant has no plans to use BYD batteries in the cars manufactured there. Tesla’s California plant produces Model S and Model X. Finally, Giga Berlin and Giga Texas can produce 250,000 vehicles per year and both plants focus on Tesla Model Y. All of Tesla’s factories running full-throttle the company can add 1.9 cars onto the roads each year.

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The new SmLFP technology

These LFP batteries use the new, active cathode material and are “built on microcrystalline technology”. Though this hardly explains what changed in terms of the chemistry, GAC claims that the cells have “13.5% higher cell quality energy density and 20% greater volume energy density than regular mass-produced” LFP cells. Again, while we know that volume energy density is the proportion of Wh per liter instead of Wh per kg, one stays clueless about what the company means by “higher cell quality energy density.”

The higher volume energy density would allow to pack more capacity in the same space available. The new cathode material has reduced the charging by 50 % of that of the standard LFP batteries. One major issue with the current battery technology is the battery’s capacity retention at freezing negative temperatures. GAC claims that its new technology would allow for an improvement of 10% in the battery retention capacity at these sub-zero temperatures. There is also a significant improvement in the battery’s life where the company claims that the new technology would offer a life of 1 million miles.

The batteries match up very closely to the Li-Ion performance levels, yet would sell cheaper. This technology defines the kind of batteries that the future generation of Aion vehicles would use. SmLFP batteries would enter mass production next year. Other companies looking forward to using the LFP technology include Tesla which would bring it in its entry Model 3 cars, and GM and Ford.        

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