Tesla's Cybercab battery leaves room for cheaper LFP cells

Tesla left empty space inside the Cybercab battery pack on purpose, to allow a future switch to lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells. According to Robert Sumpf, Tesla's director of mechanical design engineering, the goal is to make the robotaxi cheaper as production scales. Today the vehicle uses 4680 cells with a nickel chemistry. LFP cells store less energy for their size, so a direct swap would reduce range; the reserved space would allow adding more cells to compensate. The pack uses four individually sealed modules, so a faulty module can be replaced without scrapping the whole pack.…

• The Cybercab pack reserves space for LFP cells in a future phase.
• Four individually sealed modules allow replacing one without scrapping the pack.
• Texas DMV: 544 Cybercabs authorized versus 507 Model Ys in the Robotaxi fleet.

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