4680 battery won't be exclusive to Tesla cars as legacy US automaker orders 10 GWh worth

At the last all-hands company meeting, Elon Musk boasted record 4680 battery production and said that Tesla has now managed to hit the lowest cost per kWh with the cells.

It wasn't clear if he meant globally or in the US, as before he said that Tesla will be aiming to manufacture the 4680 battery as the cheapest cells in America. At the time, he most likely calculated the federal tax credit subsidy of up to $45/kWh of made-in-US battery pack production, too.

Just a few quarters ago, Tesla wasn't sure it will be able to hit that milestone, and was pondering whether it should give up on the 4680 battery project altogether if it didn't manage to produce the cells at lower cost than its suppliers Panasonic and LG.

Now that it might have mastered the cheaper dry cathode production method and is readying it for mass production, it is willing to stick with the 4680 form factor, but that doesn't mean it won't have competition.

LG is building a 4680 battery factory in Arizona, for instance, which, when operational next year, will augment Tesla's 4680 production lines for the Cybertruck, Cybercab, and even the Model Y refresh at some point.

Tesla, however, won't be LG's only customer. The Arizona factory will produce 53 GWh of batteries in total annual output, with 36 GWh of those going to 4680-style batteries and the rest to LFP cells, likely for energy storage systems.

Rivian already informed that it had placed an order for LG's higher-capacity 4695 cells for its upcoming R2 SUV, but LG is now saying that it got a 4680 battery order from a legacy US automaker, too.

During a recent shareholder meeting, the President of LG Energy Solution Kim Dong-myung confirmed that LG had "finalized a contract to supply 46 series cylindrical batteries worth more than 10 GWh per year for multiple years through our Arizona corporation in the United States."

According to him, the most interesting part in the contract is that it is with a legacy US automaker that also manufactures ICE vehicles, not a pure electric play like Tesla or Rivian. The 10+ GWh annual deliveries are also nearly a third of the Arizona factory's planned output of 46 series batteries, dwarfing Rivian, Mercedes, Toyota, and other contracts that LG has signed so far.

It remains to be seen what capacity will the Arizona factory produce for Tesla, but the more interesting part will be whether the LG 4680 cells, which come with a cold weather cathode breakthrough, will have higher performance than Tesla's own cells. The 4680 battery of Tesla has thermal efficiency issues that have manifested themselves into a middling Cybertruck charging curve.

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