We should do Cybertruck first.
Hey! Let's talk about Cybertruck's battery pack!
I noticed something special about Cybertruck
that makes it perfect as a battery-electric vehicle.
This is about energy density. 
But not how people usually talk about it.
People usually talk about energy density in terms
of mass. How much the battery weighs.
This is going to be about space - volume.
How much space the battery takes up.
Cybertruck's key advantage is energy density.
But not just energy density by weight.
It's really about energy density by volume.
Cybertruck's size and layout creates more room
for batteries. For a larger battery pack 
that holds more energy.
And allows for different battery chemistries
that are less expensive.
This creates amazing possiblities for Cybertruck.
Literally it's big.
Size does matter!
Are you ready? Let's Go!
Right now Tesla uses Nickel Cobalt Aluminum
batteries in the 2170 cylindrical cell format.
Their NCA batteries have 250 watt-hours per kg
of energy density.
That's called gravimetric - energy density by weight.
It's the company with the best,
most efficient, lightest batteries, right?
Energy density by weight matters a lot for vehicles.
It matters because the vehicles are moving around.
The more weight you have to pull around,
the more it matters. It matters a lot less for energy
storage, one of Tesla's other businesses.
Like PowerPack, MegaPack.
But it matters a lot for cars.
Because you gotta pull that weight. 
Having more weight means less efficiency.
Energy density by weight matters.
If you don't have enough gravimetric energy density
- energy density by weight -
the vehicle weighs too much and
that hurts performance and range.
There's another side to energy density:
Volumetric.
How much energy does a given volume of battery hold?
How many watt-hours per liter?
The Tesla
2170 Nickel Cobalt Alumnium battery
carries over 700 watt-hours per liter.
The battery pack for the Model 3
is 217 cm or 85 inches long,
147 cm wide,
and 10.5 cm deep.
That's a total of 303 liters of volume
that the battery pack can hold. That's
batteries and other things in the battery pack.
It can't really hold 303 liters of batteries.
It holds significantly less than that.
The Model 3's battery pack is composed of 4 modules.
The long modules - there's 4 modules - 
2 are longer than the others.
The long modules have 50 liters of volume.
The shorter modules have about 45 liters.
Which means less than 190 liters total
for the 4 modules. Keep in mind that's still
batteries and other things in the battery pack.
The cells are cylinders, so there's space lost
in between the battery cells.
And there are other components like
channels for cooling.
The 2170 cell is roughly 0.024 liters in volume.
If you look at it another way
The 75 kilowatt hour battery pack
This means Tesla is able to use
a little more than half the potential volume
to squeeze in the batteries.
You can also take height as a given and
just look at the area available for the battery pack.
The 2170 batteries are 70 mm tall or 7 cm.
Almost 3 inches tall. That's not going to change.
At least not on the Model 3 or Model Y.
It may change for Cybertruck.
We'll talk about that later.
The 3 and Y have space for a battery pack that's
roughly 85 inches long by 57 inches wide.
247 cm x 147 cm.
4416 batteries of the 2170 cylinder
take up 19,500 square cm of area.
Or 2/3 of what's available.
Cybertruck is bigger. That's great for batteries.
There's more available area
and volume, to hold more batteries.
The biggest change is the wheelbase.
Cybertruck is estimated to have a 150 inch wheelbase.
Or 380 centimeters.
Elon did say recently 
that the vehicle might be a little smaller.
So figure 145 inches wheelbase.
The Model 3's wheelbase is 113 inches.
Model Y is about the same.
Model S and X are a bit longer at ~116 inches each.
So if you figure they're about 115 inches (292 cm),
if Cybertruck's wheelbase ends up 145 inches,
or 368 centimeters,
that's roughly 30 inches or 76 cm
longer for the battery pack it can hold.
Cybertruck is also supposed to be
80 inches or 203 cm wide.
Which is 7 inches bigger - 18 cm - than the Model 3.
Adding all that length and width gives Cybertruck
a lot more room for a much larger battery pack.
And that's going to matter. I'm going to explain why next.
So now we get into battery chemistry.
Tesla recently made a deal
with Chinese company CATL
to use their Lithium Iron Phosphate 
battery technology
in battery packs for the Tesla Model 3 in China.
They're going to use it for Cybertruck as well.
I'm going to show you why.
Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries
are an important technology.
There's some really big differences between
Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries and the more common
batteries we see in electric vehicles whether it's
Nickel Cobalt Aluminum for Tesla
or we see a lot of Nickel Manganese Cobalt batteries
talked about in other contexts. 
Lithium Iron Phosphate has no nickel,
no manganese and no cobalt.
Those minerals are a lot more expensive than iron.
That makes it a lot 
less expensive to make the batteries.
Not having cobalt is a big deal because
the sourcing of cobalt in the world
a lot of it comes from conflict areas
and places that use child labor.
Companies try to avoid getting involved in that.
The main feature here is this
Lithium Iron Phosphate which has some
major advantages over traditional lithium ion batteries.
This one is just enormous compared to this.
This standard lithium - it's rated for about
1000 charge-discharge cycles.
These age quite quickly. Even in storage over a year
they'll lose their capacity.
They don't like being stored in a fully charged state.
This is a super stable technology.
It lasts - estimated - about 10 more years.
And the charge-discharge cycle is
at least 2000 but
potentially they're looking at 5000 or more.
Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries cycle better.
That means they last longer. More miles.
You get more battery life
for a lithium iron phosphate battery
than a comparable nickel-based battery.
They just last longer. It's easier to get to that
million-mile battery using LiFePo4.
But the energy density is a killer. Not just
by weight, but even more so by volume.
The Nickel Cobalt Aluminum battery
used in the Model 3 and Model Y
has 247 watt-hours per kilogram. 
That's 200 kg for a 50 kWh battery pack.
Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries have roughly
160 watt-hours per kilogram in battery density.
That means the batteries in a 
50 kWh pack would weigh
more than 50% more
adding over 100 kg to the battery pack.
But this is really about volume.
Volume matters. Size matters.
Volume is a much bigger difference between
Nickel Cobalt Aluminum
and Lithium Iron Phosphate.
The Tesla NCA battery has over 700 wH/liter
of energy density by volume.
Lithium Iron Phosphate typically has
less than 350 watt-hours per liter.
The same amount of battery takes up more than
twice the volume - more than twice the space.
This is why Cybertruck matters so much.
CATL and Tesla are coming up with innovations
that will improve the usage of volume.
But with current standards you would
not be able to fit
more than maybe a 40 kWh battery pack
into a Model 3.
Currently they hold 75 kWh as the largest pack.
There's no point in having modules really.
We should just have a pack.
We really want to move to, no such thing 
as a module, it's just cells and pack.
With Tesla and CATL working on cell-to-pack
technology, eliminating modules,
that should really improve both
energy density by weight and by volume
for the battery packs. But it's not enough 
to bring Lithium Iron Phosphate
to the same energy densities that we see
with the Nickel based materials.
Right now it's cells in modules in packs.
If you take the modules out of the process -
The best part is no part.
The best process is no process.
The best part is no part. The best process is no process
It weighs nothing, costs nothing
If you take modules out, those parts are gone.
That process is gone.
You save weight. Most importantly for Lithium Iron
Phosphate, you save volume. You save space.
And you make manufacturing easier
because there's less steps in the process.
Currently most LiFePo4 batteries I've seen
are prismatic batteries. It's a different format.
It's more like a box than like a cylinder.
It's possible that Tesla and CATL
will go to a cylindrical format
for the Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries.
But it's more likely they'll stay with prismatic.
These boxes that are larger and that ends up
using less volume than the cylindrical cells.
A smaller number of prismatic cells may
take up less space. They may be easier to assemble.
And take up less volume which is critical here.
It's also they'll increase the height of the battery
to create more volume. The standard
LiFePo4 prismatic cells I've been seeing
are 54 millimeters high
which is shorter than the 2170, 70 mm
cylindrical cell Tesla is using.
So it seems likely they will at least increase the
prismatic cell to 70 mm
and they might make it even taller.
One of the things about Cybertruck - 
There may be more room vertically
to create a larger volume battery pack
in that way as well.
The single motor RWD Cybertruck
will fill all of that space
with a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack.
I'm predicting 75-80 kWh
for a Standard Range Plus version of
the Single Motor model.
There probably will be a low budget model
that will only have maybe a 50 or 60 kWh battery pack
to get you that minimum 250 miles but the Standard
Range Plus should get over 300 miles of range.
With the high cycle life of LiFePo4,
getting maybe 5000 cycles
on a 250 or 300 mile battery pack,
you'll easily exceed the 1 million miles of
life. The 1 million mile battery pack life
that Tesla is aiming for.
For the dual motor AWD model, which is 
the one I have on reservation,
it should come with the same pack that the lower
model, Standard Range + would have.
75 to 80 kWh of
battery pack, Lithium Iron Phosphate
and over 300 miles of range.
And again a million miles of life.
I wouldn't be surprised to see
Tesla offer a longer range pack
for the dual motor Cybertruck, with
higher density NCA 2170 or some other
battery chemistry
to get to 100 kWh and over 400 miles of range.
Could happen. I'm not sure but we'll see.
It's also possible that Tesla will come to 
some kind of hybrid arrangement
where they will use a combination of LiFePo4 cells
and NCA or some other chemistry
with their advanced battery management
skills and the systems they have in Tesla
it may be that they could optimize
how that battery pack works,
using one type of battery when necessary,
the other type another time.
Really extending the life and capacity
and performance characteristics of its vehicles.
The really fun part will be when
we get to the Tri-Motor
with the Plaid powertrain,
and what Elon referred to as the
more advanced battery pack.
The Tri-Motor Plaid powertrain.
The more advanced battery pack.
What is this "more advanced battery pack?"
That is the really big secret that's
coming out on Battery Day.
We're going to find out. I'd like to tell you what it is.
But I'd only be speculating.
I don't know and nobody else knows either.
Elon knows.
A few other people in the company know.
The rest of us - we're just guessing.
Well anything that goes Zero to 60 - 
What is it - 1.9? Is that the 0-60?
That's the base model. [Laughter]
Maybe they'll use the Maxwell dry cell technology.
Maybe they'll use supercapacitors.
Maybe they'll use Hibar's manufacturing techniques.
Will it use larger cells or tab-less electrodes?
The tab-less electrode patent was filed very recently.
That might be in a future battery pack.
I'm not sure they're going to get to that quickly.
What underlying battery chemistry will the
more advanced battery pack use?
Will it just be a new version of
Nickel Cobalt Aluminum?
Will it be Nickel Manganese Cobalt 811?
I've seen a lot of research saying that's
the next step for NMC batteries.
We just don't know. I'm pretty sure they're going to use
single crystal materials in the electrodes.
And there will be some new
updated electrolyte materials.
And there will be some new electrolyte
chemistry used in the batteries.
It looks like this advanced battery pack
will have a lot more energy density.
That's going to matter a lot for Cybertruck.
The Cybertruck Tri-Motor should have at least
a 150 kWh battery pack and
at least 600 miles of range.
With 600 miles of range
if you only get 2000 cycles out of the battery pack
you're still over a million miles.
Using LiFePo4 batteries is critical for Tesla's future
because it keeps battery costs down
in multiple ways.
First of all, LiFePo4 are just less expensive
to make on their own.
The materials they use are less expensive.
When you're talking about the other batteries that
Tesla is using for applications like Roadster,
or Plaid powertrain, this advanced battery pack,
by not using Nickel, Manganese, Cobalt,
and Aluminum,
by not using Nickel and Cobalt in particular,
in the higher volume models,
that means they're creating less demand for those
hard-to-get and expensive minerals
in the advanced models. And that
will keep battery costs down
for the other batteries they're going to use
in the high end models.
LiFePo4 will serve the stationary energy market well
because mass and volume don't matter
as much for those applications.
It also works in low-end vehicles that don't need a lot of range.
If you're okay with a short-range vehicle -
and this could matter for -
within the cities, using robotaxis.
200 miles range may be plenty for that application.
NCA will continue to serve
the mid-range vehicles - Model 3 and Y
and the regular models S and X.
Plaid powertrain may see that new
advanced battery chemistry.
I think they've already tested it on the Nurburgring.
I see the Plaid Model S with a 120 kWh battery pack
and 500 miles of range.
The one thing I'm really puzzled about is
Elon claimed that Roadster
would have 600 miles of range and
I just don't see
how they can squeeze enough battery
into that size vehicle to get 600 miles of range.
This is going to have a 200 kWh battery pack.
Elon said it would have a 200 kWh battery pack.
That's huge in both mass and -
that's a lot of kilowatt hours.
It's a lot of energy, but it means it's going to weigh a lot
and it's going to take up a lot of volume
unless this advanced battery pack is
far more amazing than anybody thinks.
200 kWh at 300 Wh/kg, which would
be better than anything we have now,
That would be 1500 pounds or 670 kg.
500 pounds more than the Model 3 pack.
And at a really optimistic view on volume
that would be 250 liters
which is more than double the volume of
the batteries in the Model 3
So how would you squeeze that much volume
and that much weight into a Roadster?
That remains to be seen. Maybe Elon is serious about it
As much as I love Elon,
as much as I believe in him,
I'm not sure he can pull off a 200 kWh pack in Roadster
So just a new thing I've been doing
with my videos lately.
I'm going to leave you with some clips
from the Cybertruck reveal event.
I hope you enjoy it.
And please come back.
Subscribe, please like and everything.
Enjoy these clips. Thank you.
