Tesla could cut $5,500 from Model Y battery costs with savings coming from bigger cells and a new manufacturing process, experts say.
If all the potential efficiencies from dry-coating and the bigger cells are realized, the manufacturing cost for the Model Y's 4680 battery pack should fall to $5,000 to $5,500 - roughly half the cost of the 2170 pack, according to the sources.
The rising cost of battery materials and energy pose a risk to those forecasts, however, and Tesla has not yet been able to significantly improve the new battery's energy density or the amount of power it packs, as Musk has promised.
Still, despite those factors, the savings Tesla is expected to achieve will end up making the 4680 battery the industry's "best in class" for the foreseeable future, one source said.
Much of the $2,000 to $3,000 cost savings achieved with the 4680 battery so far has come from other improvements, and using bigger cells has proven particularly potent, the experts said.
The 4680 cells are 5.5 times the size of the 2170 cells by volume. The older cylindrical cells measure 21mm in diameter and 70mm in height, hence the name. The 4680 cells have a 46mm diameter and are 80mm high.
With the older technology, Tesla needs about 4,400 cells to power the Model Y and there are 17,600 points that need to be welded - four per cell - to create a pack that can be integrated into the car, the sources said.
The 4680 battery pack only needs 830 cells and Tesla has changed the design so that there are only two weld points per cell, slashing the welding to 1,660 points and leading to significant cost savings.