- Hi friends.
So Battery and Powertrain
Investor Day is coming.
Most people forget it's
a Powertrain day too.
So I'm just reminding you.
Like how I explain in this video,
on how fast horses transit to ICE engines,
this day will sue the day of,
the end of an era for
internal combustion engines,
also known as ICE.
As an investor, there are two things
that an outside investor should look at.
I think it's three or four,
but Elon Musk said two.
I'll let Elon Musk explain
this to you himself.
- If I were an outside investor,
I would really focus on two things.
What is the timeline to full self-driving,
and what is your plan to scale
battery production,
and get the cost per kilowatt-hour lower.
Those are, it's basically battery cells,
and full self-driving.
Those are the two strategic things
that are of most importance.
- So, Battery and Powertrain Investor Day
is a day that will blow everybody's mind,
because it's a milestone
that will set the standards so high,
leaving everyone else in the dust,
by a far margin.
I mean there is already a big gap,
but this gap is going to be as big as
Mark Spaghetti's and David Einhorn's ego.
So in this video, I will
cover the obvious stuff
that will happen during
Battery Investor Day,
and on top of other stuff,
that is not too obvious.
It is funny when I tell my friends
that Tesla will 30 X
their production capacity,
and they all give me the
"what the fuck" look.
I hope you understand that
scaling is one of the hardest,
and in fact the hardest
thing to do, in any business.
Being the biggest
battery-maker in the world,
and they want to 30 X it,
it sounds crazy, but
let's discuss about this.
I've been working really
hard on this video,
for the past three days,
and this video was supposed
to be out yesterday,
sorry for being like one day late.
You see, I really respect your time,
and I wouldn't release a video
for the sake of releasing it.
And, I really hope you like it,
appreciate the early thumbs-up.
Thank you so much.
First, let's have a fast recap
on the current technologies,
and then after, we'll cover the obvious
that will happen during
Battery Investor Day.
This is Tesla's current
battery technology.
Inside the battery there's anode, cathode,
and the separator.
Why do we need a separator?
It's because when the anode
and cathode comes together,
ka-boom, okay?
So we need a separator.
So, within all batteries
of any battery-maker,
we are talking about any brands out there.
The anode usually consists of graphite.
There are research looking into silicone,
but let's not go into there yet.
I really don't see that
happening any time soon.
Let's look at cathode.
So cathode consists of mainly
nickel, aluminum, and cobalt.
If it's the Tesla Powerwall,
this will be changed to manganese.
But let's not discuss about that yet.
80 percent nickel, 15 percent aluminum,
and three percent cobalt.
You realize this doesn't
add up to 100 percent,
it's because Elon Musk tweeted,
it's gonna be less than three percent.
There are a lot of numbers out there,
and some say nickel may be 88 percent.
I cannot confirm the numbers,
so let's just stick this number as it is.
Currently, Tesla's battery
technology can go 1,000 cycles.
So 1,000 cycles will bring 250,000 miles.
And it has a battery density of about 247,
and it costs above 100 kilowatt-hour.
So let's go into the obvious of
what is going to happen
during Battery Investor Day.
I comport everything
from everywhere I saw.
So, this is the obvious.
So, Tesla will definitely
have the Million Mile battery.
This is like, no questions
asked, they will hit the
Million Mile battery.
So how is this gonna be achieved?
So, looking at this document release,
if we look down here,
you can see that these
are called charge cycles.
You see that the battery
can go on 4,000 cycles
without much battery degradation.
Means, after 4,000 cycles,
and there is like ten, over
years, to 15 years, operation.
And its two main things are
capacity of above 90 percent,
this is like mind-blowing.
So, it is done,
and I believe, during
Battery Investor Day,
they will release the information on
how they exactly gonna do this.
And it's also gonna be super obvious
that they're gonna be less
that 100 kilowatts per hour.
Because Elon Musk
mentioned many, many times,
that, for electric vehicles,
will be competitive with
a traditional ICE cars,
100 kilowatts is the number.
So far, there are some confirmation
that Tesla can go below 100 already.
But for the NMC packs,
they are close to 100.
So I believe on Battery Investor Day,
it's gonna be less than 100 dollars.
So the next obvious thing,
is that they want to go
to one terawatt-hour.
So they want to 30 X, because currently
they are producing, like 30 gigawatt-hour.
How do you achieve 30 X production?
This one, they will do it,
but I will cover later,
how are they gonna achieve it.
The next super obvious is
the acquisition of Maxwell and Hibar.
What does Maxwell do?
They do dry electrode.
So currently, all battery
production uses wet electrode.
So, what does it mean?
So let's say for example,
this is a piece of electrode,
and they would need to
coat it, with, it's wet.
And they need to go
through a big drying oven,
to dry both sides.
And it takes a long process.
So imagine you just straight
away put a dry coating on it.
So when you have dry electrode technology,
instead of an oven,
what you need to do is just apply, done.
So the next obvious thing is that
the battery density has to go up.
How much above?
I got a hint that it's
going to be above 300,
we'll cover that later.
Tesla filed a patent,
and let's talk a little bit about this.
So this is the top-view of a battery.
So when you look at a top-view down,
this is how it looks like.
It looks like some kind
of spring roll, right.
So these are the many layers
of anode, cathode, and separator.
This is a side-view of a battery.
Many layers of anode and cathode.
So they all roll up, looking
like a toilet paper roll.
So now let's take a look at this slide.
If I'm going to flatten
the entire battery,
so, I unroll the entire toilet paper,
and I unroll it, it looks
something like this.
Currently, when you discharge power,
the electrons will just
escape through this tab,
out to the car.
So many electrons will
escape through this tab.
It will come from the furthest end,
and it will escape.
The thing is, through many charge cycles,
that means charge and discharge.
It will look something like this.
So there will be many of these electrons
all over the whole place,
and you will just keep going,
you will form these, like, line.
Because this is the shortest route out.
And maybe I like to take a limiting factor
for coming, a video on
how to explain this patent
a lot better.
So, I'll link his channel
in the description below.
So anyway, so this tabless technology,
it looks something like this.
So when your entire tab is like,
entire roll upwards,
so, let's say, the
electrons need to escape,
you can just go a direct route upwards.
So, how does this help the battery a lot?
So number one, there would be less heat.
Because, the electron doesn't
need to travel this way out,
with creating a lot of heat.
He's just out, and in.
It is very, very fast.
And, because of that, less heat,
and probably, cooling gets a lot better.
So there is so much advantages,
to this tabless technology.
Let's talk about V2G.
So with the Million Mile battery,
this is going to help a lot.
Well what is V2G?
Basically connecting
your vehicle to the grid.
If all the vehicles combined,
connected to the grid,
it can power the grid.
So I'm gonna do a super rough calculation,
my whole point is to just
let you understand that
V2G can turn your car into an asset,
a money-making asset.
So for example, the
different times of the day,
where energy cost is different.
So, during peak hour, you
may cost a different amount.
During off-peak it may
cost a different amount.
So, this may be a difference in charges.
So, if you take the
difference in these two,
roughly 200 kilowatts, hour,
it's about 70 dollars.
So that means, let's
say you charge your car
during off-peak, and you take the energy,
and you feed the grid during peak hour.
So you will roughly get 70
dollars for 200 kilowatts.
So, over the month,
and just say over the month,
you do that every day,
or maybe every alternate day.
Over the month, your profit is gonna be
about 300 dollars per month.
So through the lifespan of the entire car,
which is gonna be probably
more than ten years,
with this Million Mile battery,
you take 300 dollars, and
you times by ten years,
that is like 30 to 40,000 dollars.
This is a lot of money.
So let's say for example,
with this vehicle-to-grid technology,
let's say your car, you
bought it at 50,000 dollars.
Your car, within the next ten years,
can make you back 50,000 dollars,
so your car essentially is free.
This is fricking mind-blowing,
and I think this is going
to blow everybody's minds.
I'm just doing a rough calculation, but,
it is going to be so fricking amazing!
So the last obvious thing I'll talk about
is Tesla's Plaid Powertrain.
The Plaid Powertrain, it was tested
in an open ring last year,
the lap-time was crazy.
And Elon Musk mentioned,
during the conference call,
it's like alien technology.
When he says, "alien technology",
(laughs) you know, it means quite a lot.
I tried to search more online,
what can I get out of it?
I can't find anything at all.
So this is something I'm
really looking forward,
for Battery Investor Day.
So let's talk about what we do not know.
How much below 100 kilowatts?
I do not know, but I
will show you a chart.
So this is battery prices,
and it's been like 1,000 plus dollars,
per kilowatt-hour in 2010.
So now he has gotten way,
in 2020, it's 100 plus.
Tesla is definitely below the 100 mark.
We do not know how much.
So maybe these are every other people,
and Tesla is like, way below 100.
What we do not know is
how much battery
degradation there will be.
So we do not know exactly
how much battery degradation,
but we know it's gonna be
around the 4,000 mark, or above.
Density-wise.
So the proof of concept has been done,
it's been demonstrated above
300 watt-hour per kilograms.
So, I foresee, this gonna be above 300.
How much above?
I am not very sure.
How is Tesla going to
achieve 30 X production?
This is the biggest question I have,
and many people have.
Because, when you look at the
materials of Tesla battery,
there is more than enough aluminum.
Cobalt, Elon Musk said that
he is going to get rid of cobalt.
Because of many ethical issues.
So, next one, we have the
question mark left, is,
there's not enough nickel
production in the world,
and there's not enough
graphite in the world.
So how are they gonna solve for these two?
So if you look at how Elon
Musk has been always thinking,
he goes by the first
principle of approach.
He goes, he strips everything away,
and asks the most simple,
fundamental question.
So to 30 X, he needs how much nickel,
and how much graphite?
Let me play you a clip.
- I mean, as you just said,
we basically did the quick math,
and looked at, okay, we're
going to build, you know,
so many, 100,000 cars per year,
and this many kilowatt-hours per car.
You know, therefore, therefore.
35 gigawatt-hours of cells per year.
Well, that's a huge number,
and it was actually more
than the entire world
was producing, for all applications,
cell phones, computers, cars, everything.
- [Narrator] So that is a crazy
amount of batteries needed,
and there's not enough
materials available.
I'll show you some of
the research I've done.
So this is the amount of nickel produced
all over the whole world combined.
Generally, it's quite well spread-out,
and I believe it is easy to scale this up.
There is a plan on going to mining,
if you look at Tesla,
apparently together with LG Chem, CATL,
Daimler and Volkswagen,
they are actually gonna form a consortium,
and going to probably go into mining,
in Indonesia, for nickel.
So nickel, I'm not really worried.
So what I'm really worried about,
and this is the one
that kept me going down
this deep rabbit hole, because,
I'll show you the numbers now.
See, China produces most of
the graphite in the world.
And I'm like, "Holy shit,"
because, you think about,
remember the oil days, where countries,
if they have control of one resource,
they actually can do a lot of
shit to threaten the world,
just like, remember what
happened in the Middle East?
They can literally screw the world over.
So when I saw this, like, "Oh, shit."
So, what happened was that I went deeper.
So I check all the
available natural resource,
that maybe we could at
least start the exploration.
If we look at all this, these are,
don't look at the red diamonds,
these are things that we don't need,
these are lousy graphite.
What we are looking for
is the green one here.
So, some in Mexico.
But you look at the whole world map.
Oh, they are more located in China!
I'm like, "Holy shit."
So further looking into this,
I'm not worried anymore,
because there are people
making artificial graphite now,
and, if the time comes and it's needed,
people are scaling artificial graphite.
So, not a worry anymore.
Will Tesla go into mining?
You see, Tesla, as far as I know,
they are one of the most
vertically-integrated companies,
so they do everything themself.
I believe they are going into mining,
because they want full control.
They cannot have a time when,
let's say, Donald Trump piss China off,
and, one day, China piss Donald Trump off.
And they, no more trade.
The world is screwed.
Okay, if that really happens,
Tesla will be the least screwed,
because there's a lot more other companies
more dependent on China.
So, all these companies
are going to die first.
Tesla will be the last one to die,
because they are the most
vertically-integrated.
So, just saying.
So, will they go into mining?
My answer is, probably yes,
because Elon kind of
like hinted that before.
- And, as we scale battery production,
to very high levels,
we actually have to look
further down the supply chain.
And...
(laughs) We might get
into the mining business,
I don't know.
(audience laughing)
Maybe, a little bit at least.
- [Narrator] The last thing I
wanna talk about is recycling,
because recycling, Elon Musk mentioned,
because you see in the battery cell,
all the minerals are there.
So all they need to do is just extract it,
and do new ones again.
It's a lot cheaper than
going to the mine itself.
So I believe JB Straubel
is working on this.
He left Tesla one or two years ago,
so he's at Redwood,
I couldn't find any
more materials on this,
but I believe very strongly
that he will come during
Battery Investor Day
and talk about the recycling of materials.
So concluding this video,
if Tesla pulls this
off, it's gonna be epic,
and it's gonna be the end of ICE engines.
It's gonna be end of an era of shitty air,
and of using dinosaur fuel,
and it's gonna be a really good future.
I want you to imagine,
like, five to ten years down the road,
Tesla hits a battery density of like
400 watt-hour per kilograms.
That is disruption zone,
for battery technology
to go into aircraft.
So we live in a very disruptive era,
and being invested in Tesla
is one of the best ways
to take part in this disruption.
Anyway, appreciate those
who help me, the thumbs-up.
Thanks for being awesome,
and hope all my work has
given you better insights,
and as always, invest safe.
(upbeat music)
