Tesla announced that cumulative production of its 4680 battery cell at Gigafactory Texas hit 10 million units, a major milestone for the electric vehicle automaker, considering the technology was only unveiled in 2020.
“Produced our 10 millionth 4680 cell at Giga Texas this week!” Tesla tweeted Friday afternoon.
The production of the 4680 battery cells originally began at the Kato Road facility in Northern California before expanding to Gigafactory Texas to support production volume.
Production ramped up after the automaker began manufacturing its all-wheel-drive Model Y in April 2023.
“On Battery Day, we established a cost-down roadmap through 2026 across five areas of effort,” said Tesla’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Drew Baglino in an update on the battery cell back in April, per reporting from Electrek.
“We’ve been making progress across all these aspects since then,” he said at the time.
Tesla has indeed made progress in production.
According to Electrek, 10 million 4680 battery cells is enough to make roughly 12,000 Model Y vehicles. For a bit of perspective, Elon Musk is on the record saying he aspires to produce 20 million Teslas annually by 2030.
Tesla has claimed its battery and logistic costs could be reduced if it can bring production of the battery cells up to volume at Gigafactory Texas, according to Electrek.
As the battery cell’s production continues up at Giga Texas and Tesla’s more than 210,000-square-foot facility in Fremont, Tesla’s focus will be on reducing costs ahead of its Cybertruck production.
“Going forward for the rest of the year, the priority one is to yield in cost for the 4680 program as we steadily ramp production ahead of Cybertruck next year,” Baglino said in April, according to Electrek.
The 4680 battery cell has come a long way and reached several milestones since its initial reveal in September 2020.
In February 2022, Tesla achieved production of its 1 millionth unit at its Kato Road facility. By the end of that year, production had reached a volume equivalent of 868,000 battery cells per week.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) shares traded around $253.50 on June 16, the day the company reached its 10 millionth unit.
On the morning of June 20, Tesla shares were trading around $264.20, a roughly 4% increase. Tesla shares are currently up around 144% year to date.
