From The Verge, November 14:
The chairman of CATL isn't a believer in Elon's cylindrical battery quest.
Robin Zeng, the founder of the world’s largest EV battery company, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s big bet on 4680 cylindrical cell technology “is going to fail and never be successful.” Zeng, the chairman of China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), tells Reuters that when Musk visited China in April, “We had a very big debate, and I showed him. He was silent. He doesn’t know how to make a battery.”
Tesla’s “tabless” 4680 cells, which are used in some of its cars, including the Cybertruck, are supposed to have “five times” more energy capacity, and the company announced in September it had produced 100 million of them. A recent report by The Information said Musk had given the team working on the batteries an end of the year deadline to deal with costs and other problems.
CATL batteries, meanwhile, go inside everything from Tesla vehicles in China to Ford EVs in North America like the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning. The company specializes in lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP), which generally don’t get as much range as various cylindrical cell units used in many Tesla vehicles....
....MORE
We posted the Reuters stories on Wednesday morning (the 13th):
"Chinese giant CATL pushes beyond batteries into power grids, EV platforms"
Readers who have been with us for a while may remember when Tesla was designing their own proprietary chips and Elon's friend and supplier said:
"Nvidia CEO is 'more than happy to help' if Tesla's A.I. chip doesn't pan out" (NVDA; TSLA)
Perhaps the same will be true in the case of CATL. As noted after Mr. Musk's whirlwind visit to Beijing earlier this year:
CATL boss visits Elon Musk's Beijing hotel on Tesla CEO's surprise trip
CATL is also a supplier to Tesla.
