True Tesla Model Y range with BYD battery revealed as new Midnight Cherry Red color shows in the flesh

The world's second biggest battery maker and main Tesla competitor - BYD - has been rumored to become its fourth battery supplier since last summer. Those rumors were recently confirmed as the first Model Y batches with BYD's structural LFP battery pack have appeared on the conveyor belts at Tesla's Giga Berlin factory.

At the time, the regulatory database that had the new Model Y with the BYD battery logged for a good while, still pegged it as having a 55 kWh capacity. Since the current Chinese version with CATL LFP cells is 60 kWh, many a future Model Y owner in Europe were a bit queasy about the range of the new batches.

A recent buyer, however, revealed in the local Tesla forums that the VIN number checks were misleading. According to their Tesla Advisor, the "YSR from GH is structurally in no way different from the Shanghai model," while the actual battery capacity of the BYD 7C LFP structural battery pack turned out to be 59 kWh.

The range should hence be the same as the version with CATL battery - 455 km on the WLTP cycle - provided that the Model Y with BYD cells is on 19" wheels. The Berlin-made standard range Model Y, however, would have other advantages if its structural pack is made of BYD blade batteries. The LFP cells can be easily charged to the maximum all the time with no significant degradation, and are much safer.

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 blade 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," adds the world's second largest battery maker.

Besides the new standard range Model Y with BYD LFP battery, the Gigafactory in Berlin which boasts Tesla's most advanced paint shop, has started churning out the long-awaited Midnight Cherry Red color. The first Model Y batch in Midnight Cherry Red can be previewed in the video below, while Tesla is on record saying that some of these new multi-coat hues will be coming to the US market as well. 

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