Tesla 4680 Structural Battery Pack Teardown: New Things Revealed

A significant number of cells has been extracted.

08:35

Mark Kane

By: Mark Kane

Aug 14, 2022 at 11:52pm ET

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The Munro Live's teardown of a Made-in-Texas (MIT) Tesla Model Y's structural battery pack progresses slowly and, in recent days, reached another stage.

All 4680-type cylindrical battery cells from the first out of four sections have been extracted, revealing some new things related to the thermal systems, runaway management, structural adhesive, terminal connectors and the BMS.

As it turns out, underneath the battery cells is a black plastic holder. An interesting thing is that the bottom of the cells is not glued, which is probably because it is used for venting.

Meanwhile, everything else, covered by the pink polyurethane foam, is combined into a single ultra-strong brick.

The cooling channels between the cells, also wrapped in the pink foam, had to be destroyed when extracting battery cells if one would like to avoid damaging the cells.

The video reveals also a new view of the bus bar system and the BMS on the other side of the pack.

Overall, the video proves that Tesla's structural battery pack will be an unprecedented strengthening to the vehicle structure. The main purpose of this concept is to lower the weight of the vehicle, but there might be also other positive effects related to safety and better driving characteristics. Of course, we can forget about repairability, but the brick can still be recycled (kind of like a high grade ore of valuable materials).

The Tesla Model Y with the structural battery pack (4680-type cells) is currently produced only at the Tesla Giga Texas plant and as far as we know, the output is still limited by the availability of the cells, although ramping-up.

What do you think?

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In the future, we might see also other types of structural battery packs in Teslas, especially if the rumors about a structural BYD battery (LFP) in the entry-level European Tesla Model Y turn out to be true.

Time will tell which solution is better. The initial version of the MIT Tesla Model Y does not bring any significant changes from the consumer perspective (range of 279 miles EPA and price - reportedly at $61,990).