World Courant
Robin Zeng, the founding father of the world’s largest EV battery firm, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s huge wager on 4680 cylindrical cell know-how “goes to fail and by no means achieve success.” Zeng, the chairman of China’s Up to date Amperex Know-how (CATL), tells Reuters that when Musk visited China in April, “We had a really huge debate, and I confirmed him. He was silent. He would not know the way to make a battery.”
Tesla’s “tableless” 4680 cells, that are utilized in a few of its vehicles, together with the Cybertruck, are presupposed to have “5 occasions” extra power capability, and the corporate introduced in September that it had produced 100 million of them. A current report by The Info stated Musk had given the group engaged on the batteries an finish of the yr deadline to cope with prices and different issues.
CATL batteries, in the meantime, go inside the whole lot from Tesla autos in China to Ford EVs in North America just like the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning. The corporate focuses on lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP), which usually don’t get as a lot vary as varied cylindrical cell items utilized in many Tesla autos.
Whereas Zeng wasn’t impressed with Musk’s battery data, he thought he was good with chips, software program, {hardware}, and “mechanical issues.”
Zeng additionally commented that Musk’s downside is “overpromising” timelines, which he typically does habitually, particularly concerning Full Self-Driving know-how. “Possibly one thing wants 5 years. However he says two years. I undoubtedly requested him why. He instructed me he wished to push folks.”