The Made-in-Texas (MIT) Tesla Model Y from the Tesla Giga Austin plant is equipped with Tesla's latest 4680-type cylindrical battery cells, but the pack capacity has not been officially revealed.
With the first batches already delivered, more and more reports come in with new estimates of the battery capacity.
In one of the recent reports, Spoken Reviews presents results from the Tessie app, which estimates that the usable capacity is 67.1 kWh. The video says also that it previously showed 67.5 kWh.
Interestingly, the app indicates also that the battery state of health is 99.5% (0.5% capacity drop).
The range at 90% state-of-charge (SOC) is 251 miles or 224 miles in the real world, according to the screen. The first number corresponds to the EPA range of 279 miles (449 km).
The new 67.1-67.5 kWh numbers are similar to those previously reported by Spoken Reviews, estimated from the car's display when Supercharging (around 66 kWh).
Unfortunately, the measures still do not allow us to draw any conclusions, because, besides the uncertainty of estimations, Tesla might simply not allow using the entire potential of the 4680-type batteries yet.
The question is also what is the total battery capacity - it might be above 70 kWh, assuming a few kWh buffer.
Troy Teslike reports that the 4680-type cells have a 98 Wh capacity. However, he doesn't agree that the number of cells is 828, which would indicate 81.4 kWh capacity (total) when combining the two numbers.
Currently, Tesla produces 4680-type battery cells in-house, but in the future, it intends to add to the equation also external suppliers, including Panasonic and LG Energy Solution. Panasonic said recently that samples of the new cylindrical cells were already shipped to Tesla.
In the case of Panasonic, the first plant in Japan is expected to have an output of roughly 10 GWh annually, while LG Energy Solution targets 9 GWh per year. Together it should be enough for 250,000 Tesla Model Y.
