Tesla’s 4680 battery cell will ‘never be successful’: CATL chairman

A chairman from China-based battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) recently cast doubt on Tesla’s 4680 battery cell, saying that he didn’t think it would be successful in the long run.

In a conversation earlier this year, CATL Chairman Robin Zeng told Elon Musk that the cylindrical 4680 battery “is going to fail and never be successful,” according to a report from Reuters this week. Zeng made the statements to Musk in a meeting with the Tesla CEO on his Beijing visit in April, and the chairman also said that the Tesla CEO was better equipped to handle other technologies than battery cells.

“We had a very big debate, and I showed him,” Zeng said. “He was silent. He doesn’t know how to make a battery. It’s about electrochemistry. He’s good for the chips, the software, the hardware, the mechanical things.”

Tesla working on four dry cathode 4680 battery variants: The Information

Tesla’s 4680 battery cell and CATL licensing

In September, Tesla announced that it had produced its 100 millionth 4680 battery cell at Gigafactory Texas, after reaching 50 million units in June. The company is also in the process of expanding its Gigafactory Nevada to add a dedicated 4680 cell production facility, expected to ramp up to 500 GWh in the long term.

The report also highlights a licensing deal Tesla has with CATL for technology related to producing batteries in Nevada, expected to officially launch in 2025, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke to Reuters under the condition of anonymity.

Zeng on FSD Supervised and Musk’s promise timelines

In addition to discussing battery technology, the chairman said that he and Musk talked about the company’s focus on autonomy, adding that he agrees with Tesla’s overall approach to the topic. Unlike other companies that are developing self-driving systems, Tesla’s Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) only utilizes cameras as sensors, rather than using multiple layers of different redundant technologies.

“He’s all in,” Zeng told Reuters regarding Musk and Tesla’s FSD strategy in a statement earlier this month. “I think it’s a good direction.”

Despite his support for the company’s approach to FSD Supervised, Zeng also noted that he thinks Musk tends to set unrealistic timelines for new vehicle technologies, and he even asked the Tesla CEO during the April conversation, saying two-year timelines may as well be “infinity.”

“His problem is overpromising. I talked to him,” the chairman added. “Maybe something needs five years. But he says two years. I definitely asked him why. He told me he wanted to push people.”

Musk has addressed criticisms of his timelines before, pointing to his optimism as a necessary part of his accomplishments.

While certainly not perfect, my batting average for most predictions is quite good.

My schedule optimism, without which I probably wouldn’t even have tried to do many endeavors, gets the best of me sometimes, but I always deliver in the end.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 30, 2023

“Now, admittedly I’m a little optimistic sometimes,” Musk said during this year’s Annual Shareholders Meeting. “You know, I don’t have a complete lack of self awareness. But if I wasn’t optimistic, this wouldn’t exist this factory wouldn’t exist.”

The CEO later went on to add that he believes he’s been “pathologically optimistic from birth.”

CATL hopes for U.S. factory under Trump

CATL also told Reuters that it would build a U.S. production facility if President-elect Donald Trump would allow it.

“Originally, when we wanted to invest in the U.S., the U.S. government said no,” Zeng said. “For me, I’m really open-minded.”

“I do hope that in the future they are open to investments,” the chairman added.

In August, Trump expressed that he would be open to Chinese companies building factories in the U.S., despite the country’s recent passage of a 100-percent tariff on electric vehicle (EV) imports.

“We’re going to give incentives, and if China and other countries want to come here and sell the cars, they’re going to build plants here, and they’re going to hire our workers,” Trump said in a statement to the publication in August.

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