Tesla Model Y specs increasingly fragmented as new batches may have BYD's safer blade battery

The specs fragmentation of Tesla's electric car models keeps increasing, and the Model Y is bearing the brunt of it. Not only can the Model Y ship with different airbag configurations or, in the future, with new multi-layer colors, but it may also start landing with different battery technologies than the rest of the roster, depending on the Gigafactory it has been produced in.

After the rumor that the world's largest EV battery maker CATL will be supplying its longer-range M3P phosphate packs for Tesla to embed in the standard range Model Y, now comes speculation that BYD will be supplying its blade battery tech for use in Model Y batches made at Giga Berlin as soon as August. Earlier this month, BYD's CEO informed about a battery partnership formed with Tesla, and at the time it wasn't clear if it will include the blade packs.

The "blade" term refers to the packaging fashion as it offers a much safer and space-saving technology. According to BYD, "while undergoing nail penetration tests, the Blade Battery emitted neither smoke, nor fire after being penetrated, and its surface temperature only reached 30 to 60°C." The battery pack has also been "subjected to other extreme test conditions, such as being crushed, bent, being heated in a furnace to 300°C and overcharged by 260%." "None of these resulted in a fire or explosion," claims BYD, while the nickel-based performance EV batteries "exceeded 500°C and violently burned" during the nail test, as you can see demonstrated in the video below.

In any case, Tesla's contract with BYD obviously includes blade batteries as has been speculated before, and, since the Gigafactory in Berlin churns out the Model Y at the moment, it's not hard to deduce that Tesla's affordable SUV will be first in line for BYD's blade batteries, too. Alternatively, Tesla may just be using the first shipments for test batches at Giga Berlin before it ramps up the battery orders and Model Y production rates there, as the report claims mass orders won't come before 2023.

As to the exact specs of the blade battery that BYD is shipping for the Model Y, these remain a mystery, though the Tang SUV that BYD sells with such a pack in Europe offers some hints. "For longevity, the Blade Battery tops 1.2 million km after 3,000 cycles of charging / discharging, while headline performance figures for the Blade Battery-powered BYD Tang include a single-charge range of 505km (NEDC) and acceleration from 0-100 km/h in just 4.6-seconds. The BYD Tang's Blade Battery installation recharges from 30% to 80% of full capacity in an impressively short 30-minutes, with DC power output of 110kW," informs BYD. 

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