Tesla Receives Large 4680 Battery Production Shipment In Austin

A drone operator captured footage of a truck delivering crates marked Cathode Line 1 and Anode Line 1 production equipment.

tesla battery production line giga austin 2

Steven Loveday

By: Steven Loveday

Nov 3, 2021 at 9:17am ET

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Jeff Roberts publishes daily drone videos of the happenings at Tesla's upcoming Gigafactory in Austin, Texas. The video posted on November 2, 2021, may be arguably the most compelling yet, as we get to watch a delivery truck take 4680 battery production line equipment into the factory. What's more, Roberts points out that the footage is from day 468 of his coverage, which is likely just a coincidence, but still interesting.

Tesla touted its upcoming 4680 batteries at Battery Day back in September 2020, and it made it clear it was a future technology, and not something that would happen right away. However, Tesla also said Model Y crossovers coming out of Texas and Berlin would have the new batteries.

Since then, there has been plenty of speculation from both Tesla supporters and skeptics. Tesla has a facility on Kato Road near its Fremont factory where it's already producing the 4680 batteries, though not in large enough quantities for an entire fleet of vehicles. The automaker is also leaning on other battery suppliers to produce the cells. Regardless, there are still many folks who believe it could be years before we see 4680 cells in Tesla's cars.

Tesla has also shared that it will have a 4680 cell production facility on-site at its upcoming Giga Texas. As you can see from the video above, as well as the tweet below, a large battery-related shipment has arrived and headed into the factory.

Roberts shares on YouTube:

"We got lucky today with the arrival of the Cathode Line 1 and Anode Line 1 production equipment deliveries and it didn't sit in storage long; within minutes of arrival, the Anode Line 1 truck headed deep inside of the battery cell production area which is the Northwest "quadrant" of the factory! This means 4680 batteries could be ready to go into production vehicles soon and it all started on DAY 468; coincidence???!"

He notes that there were two different truckloads that were clearly marked with the words Anode Line 1 and Cathode Line 1. The truck carrying the Anode Line is seen driving into the factory, which suggests Tesla may have plans to install the new equipment.

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This goes right along with Elon Musk's comments from Tesla's Q2 2021 earning call, during which the CEO said Tesla was expecting huge shipments of battery cell production equipment in both Texas and Germany. According to Teslarati, Musk shared:

“Meantime, we have a massive amount of equipment on order and arriving for the high-volume cell production in Austin and Berlin. But obviously, given what we’ve learned with the pilot plant, which is in Fremont, which is really quite a big plant by most standards, we will have to modify a bunch of that equipment. So it won’t be able to start immediately."

Learn More About Tesla's 4680 Cells:

Tesla 4680 Battery Cells To Debut In Production In Early 2022