During the 2024 Shareholder Meeting, Elon Musk announced that Tesla has made new innovations on the 4680 cell standard. Tesla has been working hard for several years to get a functional 4680 cell in production that either matches or beats the performance of the existing 2170 cell. The official Cybertruck account also shared an image (below) of the first 4680 dry-cathode process Cybertruck with its production crew on X.
We’re going to take a bit of a dive into the 4680, what exactly this new process and cell is, and then some of its possible advantages. So, grab your charging cable!
First prototype Cybertruck with in-house dry cathode 4680 cells – making it an all dry electrode vehicle pic.twitter.com/NzJxKQrRBp
Dry Battery Electrode (DBE) is a different process overall from the current Wet Battery Electrode (WBE) that is common today. This dry process removes the highly toxic solvents and furnace baking processes from the equation, saving both time and space, while also being environmentally friendly.
The Dry Cathode we’re talking about specifically means that the electrode – the conducting terminal at the edges of the battery – is produced in a dry process. In the previous process, it was produced with a wet process.
Tesla’s 4680 cell suppliers – LG and Panasonic – have both been working hard to cut down on costs and ramp up their own 4680 cell production while Tesla works on their own internal improvements as well. If Tesla has found a means to easily scale the Dry Cathode method, it’ll make 4680 cells and the batteries that they are a part of - cheaper to produce.
The 4680 Cell
The 4680 cell - 46mm wide, 80mm tall
Not a Tesla App
Tesla has used the 4680 cells to make structural battery packs for the Model Y. However, these vehicles had poor charging performance and lower energy density, and they were quickly removed from sales. The sheer size of the 4680 cell made it difficult to cool, limiting its performance.
The updated 4680 cell was announced at the November 2023 Earnings Call as Cybercell, making a comeback for the Cybertruck. This new version was going to have better energy density, as well as improved charging performance.
Sandy Munro of Teardown Titan fame showed that this improved version has about a 12% energy density increase, a pretty significant improvement. You can watch his teardown of the Cybertruck below.
Tabless Design
The tabless design of the 4680 cell also has an impact on its production, and how easy it is to manufacture. Think of the tabs as the little nubs on the top of a regular small battery. The lack of tabs means that production of the cell body doesn’t have to pause to add the tabs, reducing the chance for defects with the elimination of a process, and making it faster to boot.
Removing the tab also helps in cutting down the distance that electrons have to travel to get in and out of the cell – this means less resistance, and less energy lost in the process, increasing overall vehicle efficiency.
Advantages
This new 4680 cell process has a few advantages – including an overall cost reduction of up to 50% compared to the current wet process. That’s in addition to the dry process being more environmentally friendly, which will also allow for manufacturing of the cell to scale quicker.
Tesla wants to move from the standard 2170 cell to the 4680 cell for several reasons. The biggest, by far, is cost savings. The 4680 cell is physically a bigger cell and can be used to structurally support the vehicle, meaning cost savings on both, the production of the 4680 cell and the structure of the vehicle.
Easy and Cheap
There’s more too – the 4680 cell will be easier to manufacture because of its bigger size. The 2170 cell is tall and thin, while the 4680 cell is wide and stout. In addition, its unique tab-less design is supposed to generate less resistance, improving charging speeds and cell performance.
Essentially, Tesla can fill the space taken up by 4,400 2170 cells with only 960 4680 cells. This results in a significant reduction in the material used to encase each individual cell, thereby saving space and maximizing energy density for the space the battery pack takes up.
All in all, that could mean a future price drop for the Cybertruck as well as increase the rate of production. Tesla has envisioned producing approximately 250,000 Cybertrucks per year, and they’ll need a lot of 4680 battery packs to do so.
In the future, we can see Tesla bringing the 4680 cell with all these improvements - and more - to the rest of its vehicle lineup, as they will eventually surpass the 2170 cell technology.
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Last night, Tesla released software update 2024.45.32.5, which includes updated versions of FSD for HW3 and HW4 vehicles. More specifically, this update includes FSD V12.6.2 for HW3 and FSD V13.2.5 for HW4 models (how to check if you have HW3 or HW4).
While there aren’t new features in this update and the FSD release notes remain the same, it does include bug fixes, which should help these FSD updates go to a wider audience.
HW3 Model 3
What’s most interesting about this update is that it’s the first time a version of FSD V12.6 is going out to the Model 3 with HW3. Previously, it was only available for the redesigned Model S, Model X, and Model Y. The Cybertruck has only ever been available with HW4, which makes the Model 3 the lone vehicle left out of the FSD 12.6 release for unknown reasons.
The FSD hardware for the Model 3 and Model Y is identical, but the camera placements shift slightly due to the different vehicle body shapes, so it’s possible that played a role.
After a long wait, Model 3 owners are finally getting a chance to try out End-to-End on the Highway, as well as many other improvements.
FSD V12.6.2 Improvements
FSD V12.6.2 shares the same changelog as V12.6.1 - so we’re not expecting major changes besides bug fixes on this particular release, at least for vehicles coming from V12.6.1. Instead, it seems the primary focus of this update is to address compatibility for the Model 3.
Overall, V12.6 is far closer to V13 than it is to V12.5.4.2 - and it really does feel that way. It is an impressive feat from Tesla to make such big and positive changes for a platform that they’ve admittedly been having some difficulties in obtaining better results. However, this really underlines the fact that they’re still committed and trying very hard to achieve Unsupervised FSD even on HW3.
The other bit of good news is that this latest FSD update is based on update 2024.45.32.x, which means that it will be available to all vehicles. While Tesla has released the next major update, version 2025.2, it’s currently only available internally. If you’ve been thinking about subscribing to FSD, now may be a good time, since you’ll qualify to receive the latest HW3 or HW4 FSD version once it rolls out widely.
Legacy Model S and Model X
While the update has begun to roll out to Model 3’s for the first time, at this point in time, we haven’t seen any legacy Model S or Model X vehicles included in this update. Those vehicles, for now, are still on FSD V12.5.4.2.
However, we do expect Tesla to add support for these vehicles. The question is whether that’s included in this update or whether it’ll be a future release.
This update has barely started rolling out - the first vehicles started receiving the update last night in a small batch. However, we will hopefully see more waves in the coming days that will progressively get larger. Expect this update to take at least two weeks to go out to the majority of HW3 vehicles if major issues aren’t found.
Now that the Model Y Juniper refresh has officially been announced in the Asia-Pacific markets, the initial vehicles from Giga Shanghai are starting to make their way to showrooms throughout the region.
And that means lots of new pictures. Let’s take a look at some of the latest close-up shots of the 2025 Model Y.
Light Bar Close-Up
Our first up-close look at the new front end of the new Model Y. This car is likely en route to a showroom prior to the start of Tesla’s big sales push for the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this is one of the closest and cleanest shots of the new front end.
The sharp new front of the Juniper
@DriveGreen80167 on X
The new front light bar is very visible, even when it’s off. It’s more than a thin strip of lights. The headlights are located directly below the light bar at either end. You can also see the new squared-away sharp lines - starting from the lightbar gaps and going up the hood. The new design looks far more aggressive and sharp when viewed at this angle.
Wheels
And the new wheels are pretty interesting, too - especially since they don’t seem to have full aero covers on them. We’re wondering if Tesla intends to introduce aero covers for these wheels later - or if they’ll just stay uncovered. They look pretty good - but the black hubcap in the center stands out against the rest of the wheel. Time will tell whether the clean black finish holds up with use.
We're a big fan of these new fan-blade wheels
@DriveGreen80167 on X
Either way, they’re pretty good looking - but we’d prefer to see them in an all black finish - similar to the Shadow Gemini’s that are currently available. Hopefully, once the Model Y refresh arrives in North America and Europe, that option will be available in addition to the Crossflow wheels.
Videos
Here is one of the first videos showing off the rear light bar.
The refreshed Model Y also brings a ton of changes to the interior. In addition to the Launch Edition exclusive dash, we also get a good shot of the new ventilated seats, as well as the return of the turn signal stalk.
The best interior shot we've seen so far
@DriveGreen80167 on X
The new Model Y also has the same new center console as the Model 3 Highland - with the two-part slider. For now, it seems like the Launch Edition will include rubber pedal covers - nothing fancy like the metallic ones available on the Performance variants yet.
Rear End Close-Up
On the rear end of the vehicle, we get a close-up view of the new reflective light bar. Tesla claims this is an industry-first, and it does look very cool. The actual light is located on the inside edge of the piece that overhangs the reflective portion. The reflective portion itself is painted to match the vehicle - and isn’t a glossy surface, but rather matte.
Gotta love that new reflective light bar
@DriveGreen80167 on X
In the next image, we can also see that the rear camera is mounted in a new location. It doesn’t have the camera lip that the 2024 Model Y has been shipping with, as the camera is now mounted on the very edge of the new raised bumper. This also means the camera is much higher up than it previously was. This location change likely means that the new Y will require some additional training time for both FSD and Actually Smart Summon, as well as the new front bumper camera.
This is going to be an interesting change - we’re not sure how this new camera location will handle snow, rain, and road muck, but this is likely the main reason for it being moved up and away from the road.
The updated camera positioning is noticeably higher
@zhongwen2005 on X
We’re excited to see the new Model Y in person. This refresh has been a long time coming and there are many details that are still waiting to be discovered.
Customer deliveries are supposed to begin in just a couple of months - May at the earliest - in the Asia-Pacific region. We’re hoping to see the refresh arrive in Europe and North America by summertime and then see the launch of the Performance variant shortly thereafter.
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