Is Tesla working on a 110 kWh battery?

Tesla is working on a 110-kWh battery pack if leaked documents on their battery management system firmware are to be trusted. This should enable ranges of well over 400 miles or the equivalent of 644 km. There are also rumours that European Model Y enthusiasts will have to wait until 2021 for their cars.

According to US media, the discovery goes back to hacker Jason Hughes, who is himself a Tesla owner. On Twitter, Hughes wrote that there is a ‘packID’ that starts at “~109 kWh usable (400+ miles)”. Tesla blog Teslearati speculates that if the 109 kWh corresponds to the net capacity, the gross value should be at least 115 kWh. It was also Hughes who first reported the planned P100D variant of the Model S in a similar leak in 2016.

Spent a little time RE'ing some recent Tesla BMS firmware.

Some variables were tweaked to fit 108 cell groups (~450V pack).

There is a packID that starts life set to ~109 kWh usable (400+ miles).

Bunch of other tweaks suggest prep for new S/X/3 pack configs at some point. 🔋

— Jason Hughes (@wk057) February 19, 2020

The timing of the changes is unclear, nor does Hughes give the details about the source material that led him to these conclusions. But these changes would come as no surprise – Elon Musk said in January that the Model S would soon exceed the 400-mile range mark when he announced the Q4 figures.

It is not clear whether the changes found by Hughes are part of the Plaid drive, which is to come with the Model S and X. The drive layout with three electric motors and higher power should also result in some changes to the rest of the battery-electric drive, for example to the powerpack. But it is also possible that this is a general update of the battery, which would also benefit the other drive versions. Expect Tesla to provide further information at the ‘Battery Day’ scheduled for April.

If it goes ahead, Tesla engineers would not have to worry about the financing of the development of these new batteries. The company has recently completed a capital increase, in which Tesla raised around 2.3 billion dollars by issuing a total of 397,500 new shares. The deal was attractive as the company had set the price of the new shares at 767 dollars, and the value had since risen to over 900 dollars. Tesla stated in a stock exchange announcement that the money would be used to “strengthen the balance sheet” and for “general purposes”.

No Model Y export to Europe?

Tesla news is also available in Germany: The Californian company has integrated some information about the planned plant in Grünheide on their website. The ‘Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg’, as the plant will be officially called, will employ up to 12,000 people in the first phase starting in 2021, when Tesla plans to produce 10,000 Model Y per week. Until now, these figures had mostly been quoted for later expansion phases.

On Twitter, one German Tesla enthusiast tweeted that he had just talked to a Tesla employee on the phone who told him that there are currently no plans to export the Model Y to Germany. One would assume this also means that none are being exported to Europe generally. It seems the European Model Y will be exclusively produced at the plant being built in Brandenburg, or so the Twitter user claimed.

>>With reporting by Sebastian Schaal, Germany.

teslarati.com (battery leak), electrek.co (shares), tesla.com (Brandenburg), teslamag.de (Model Y, in German)