Electrode/Electrolyte
As previously noted, there do not appear to be raw material supply constraints forecast in any of the information I’ve gone through over the past week. However, probably the most consequential change which Tesla announced During their battery day in September of 2020 was changing the electrode process from wet to dry. Consequential in terms of both CAPEX & OPEX cost, speed of production increasing factory throughput by a factor of around 7. This is best described in detail in yet another excellent video by The Limiting Factor.
Factory Footprint shrinks (10x) whilst output grows by a factor of around 7x.
This photograph which shows the scale & size of the Wet process equipment & quote below are from a Seeking Alpha article about this technology advance written in 2019.
By moving to the Dry Battery Electrode manufacturing process a lot of extremely large mixing, drying & recovery equipment can be completely eliminated.
#4 Tesla Battery Factory Deep Dive // Manufacturing Revolution
The Maxwell process works for both cathode and anode electrodes. Use NCA powder and aluminum foil to get a cathode electrode. Use graphite powder and copper foil and out comes an anode electrode. There’s a bit more to it – add a bit of different polymer to the Teflon for better strength and ion transmission. Add a bit of other material to improve electrical conductivity. Extruders can be “decoupled” from the laminator by winding electrode film into rolls which are then fed into the laminator. But the process remains very, very simple.
We know the Maxwell process works. Maxwell Technologies has used this process commercially to its make Super-Capacitors. Capex to make batteries will be far less using this simple process. And there’s no solvent involved.
Tesla are not stopping there in developing the factory to build factories. As you can see below, they are actively looking for ways to drop out equipment & processes in order to optimize battery production from any angle in a bid to reduce cost.
These writings about the technical aspects of batteries, components, supply chain and the like are intended to stimulate awareness and discussion of these issues. Investors should view my work in this light and seek other competent technical advice on the subject issues before making investment decisions.