The president of CATL does not believe in Musk’s adventure with cylindrical cells
Robin Zeng, the founder of the world’s largest car battery manufacturer, says that the bet that Tesla boss Elon Musk placed on the technology of 4680 cylindrical cells will fail, because in his opinion the technology will never succeed.
Zeng, president of China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), told Reuters he had a big debate with Musk when he visited China in April. “I showed him how things are. He remained mute. He doesn’t know how to make batteries.”
Tesla’s 4680 cells, which are used in some of the US manufacturer’s cars, including the Cybertruck, are supposed to have “five times” more energy capacity, with the company announcing in September that it had produced 100 million of them. According to a recent report by The Information, Musk has given the battery team until the end of the year to deal with costs and issues.
Meanwhile, CATL’s batteries are found in everything from Tesla vehicles in China to Ford electric cars in North America, such as the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning. The company specializes in lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, which generally don’t provide the range of the various cylindrical cells used in Tesla’s vehicles.
Although Zeng wasn’t impressed with Musk’s battery knowledge, he thinks the Tesla boss is well versed in chips, software, hardware and “mechanical stuff.”
Zeng also commented that Musk has a problem with overly optimistic promises about timelines, which he often does, especially when it comes to FSD autonomous driving technology. “Maybe something takes five years, but he says two is enough. I asked him why he was doing it, he told me that he wanted to force people.”
Source:
Automotoshow.rs
Photo: Archive / CATL / Tesla
Source: autoblog.rs
