Tesla Outlined Global Battery Needs For Transportation At 10 TWh

If Tesla aims for 3 TWh by 2030, and the global EV demand will be 10 TWh annually, that would be roughly a third of the vehicle market.

By: Mark Kane

Sep 23, 2020 at 8:39am ET

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During the Tesla Battery Day, the company has outlined - using data from external sources - the expected global battery demand (annual) to switch to electric power entirely.

In the case of road transportation, the world would need some 10,000 GWh or 10 TWh of batteries every year. Assuming that the average life of a vehicle is 15 years, 150 TWh would be in circulation at 100% electrification.

That's quite a lot and even the biggest players today are barely aiming for a few hundred GWh each within several years.

Global battery demand to electrify transportation globally:

Small / robotaxi: 1,500 GWh
Compact / Midsize: 3,500 GWh
Luxury & SUV: 900 GWh
Pickup truck: 1,100 GWh
Semi & Commercial: 3,000 GWh
Total: 10,000 GWh or 10 TWh

Similarly, 10,000 GWh or 10 TWh will be needed in stationary applications, supporting the switch to 100% renewable electricity.

That would be a total of 20 TWh annually, although we must remember that it's not that simple because old EV batteries with 70-80% capacity can be used as ESS for quite some time before recycling.

Global battery demand for other applications globally:

Non-renewable electricity: 2,300 GWh
Coal heating: 1,400 GWh
Gas heating: 2,100 GWh
Oil heating: 800 GWh
Future EV: 1,500 GWh
Future Growth: 1,900 GWh
Total: 10,000 GWh or 10 TWh

Tesla yesterday announced the ramp-up of its pilot battery plant in California (for the new 4680 cylindrical cells), which should reach 10 GWh annually in 2021.

The goal for 2022 is 100 GWh, which sounds like multiple manufacturing lines, and by 2030 it could be 3,000 GWh or 3 TWh.

What do you think?

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If all innovations mentioned at the event are implemented, the 1 TWh output would be possible in a battery plant smaller than the fully completed Gigafactory in Nevada.

That would be 30% of the ultimate size of the EV battery market (assuming 10 TWh total), and by the way - Tesla will still be buying batteries from other suppliers (at least for the next 5-10 years we guess).