There’s naturally been a lot of talk and speculation about the new battery announced last year at battery day, the 4680. But not much attention has been paid to the other ‘new’ battery they mentioned, the Li-Fe one. The Lithium Iron battery. Why is that? Is it because Tesla want to avoid the Osborne Effect?

This Li-Fe battery is a lower power dense version of the new design 4680 cell and critically contains no Nickel. Nickel, not Lithium, is the apparent limiting material on battery production in the future. Well maybe Tesla have figured out a way around this shortage. This battery version is destined to be fitted to the new forthcoming $25,000 model 2 which would not need the high spec top of the range cell. So a smaller battery pack would be lighter as well and still offer a 250 mile range from this smaller car. The LI-Fe has also been listed as going into certain Model 3 and Y derivatives where the absolute highest performance is not so important.

What all this means is that leaves Tesla with enough supplies of Nickel for the ‘hot’ versions of Models 3, Y and S. Not to mention the Cybertruck and Semi.perhaps.

If this does turn out to be the case, then Tesla will have done it again and taken another leap forward in battery development and production.

Wonder how long we will have to wait to find out – presumably until Giga Berlin and Gigs Texas come on line and ramp up production. I cannot see them bothering to install the old/existing 2170 battery production lines in these new factories. So then we will know, maybe?