The dismantling of the Tesla Model Y, which was purchased specifically for this purpose and has a new design from the Gigafactory in Texas at the consulting firm Munro & Associates, is progressing – but not nearly as quickly as planned. Last week, the experts there showed how the supporting battery pack can be expanded with the new 4680 cells and that it weighs almost 550 kilograms together with the front seats and carpets.
They then wanted to open it up, and also sell some of the included 4680 batteries individually. But that turns out to be far more difficult than expected.
Tedious work on the new Tesla battery
One of the Munro consultants informed about this in a new YouTube video on Tuesday. The team has been working on removing the cover of the removed battery pack for two and a half days, he explains. In the background, you can see how little progress has been made so far (see photo above).
Apparently, the metal element could not simply be removed after loosening the connection to the lower part but sticks flat to the 4680 batteries with a stubborn mass. In the video, it’s bent up over about 40 centimeters at the front, and the Munro dissectors seem to have managed about the same amount at the back.
Separating the lid from the package is much more difficult than expected, the moderator says several times, apologizing that an announced detailed video about the 4680 batteries is not ready yet. The pink-colored material is a polyurethane that is extremely hard and extremely stable, he explains with a piece of it in his hand. And it is very firmly attached to the steel lid.
The 4680 batteries in the new Tesla package for the Model Y are apparently well secured. Only one of the thick cylinders can be seen shimmering through the pink in the video. This is not only unfavorable for Munro because it makes the analysis work much more time-consuming: the consultants have been offering individual 4680 batteries from the Model Y for sale since shortly before the start of this Tesla disassembly.
According to their information, 25-30 percent of the contingent provided for this was already sold out last week – despite the high price of 800 dollars per piece.
No problem to recycle the 4680 pack. Just think of any battery pack as super high grade ore – it is always better to start with high grade ore than low grade!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2022
4680 package with “zero repairability”
With just 75 of the estimated 800-850 cells in the structural battery of their Model Y, the industry consultants would have recovered the purchase price of $ 60,000 for this variant, and with more of them, further, disassembly should also be well worth it.
They also sell detailed reports to industry customers. With regard to the repairability of the 4680 packages, however, given the “monumental” task of opening it, it must be stated that in principle it does not exist, says the moderator in the current video.
He assumes that this is not possible with a battery that is used as part of the supporting structure, as in the Model Y AWD from Texas – but this knowledge did not exist before the consulting firm actually dealt with it. In some cases, their video also aroused fears that the structural battery’s recyclability was also poor. Tesla CEO Elon Musk countered this: recycling the 4680 packages was “no problem,” he wrote in a discussion on Twitter. However, he did not give any tips for removing the valuable batteries at Munro.
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