BMW Really Could Beat Tesla At Their Own Game
BMW’s Gen6 battery plant is taking shape.
Here’s a question: How do you dominate the EV market? That’s something BMW has been trying to figure out over the past few years. You see, Tesla has proven to the world that EVs can be excellent, which has triggered the trend of automobile manufacturers switching to electric. But this drastic sea change will rewrite the status quo of the automotive world, put new companies on top, and possibly even bury the old guard. Well, to answer this question and keep BMW a juggernaut in the automotive world for years to come, they have copied Tesla. But it seems like they might actually be doing things better than them.
Tesla’s shot at remaining the dominant force in the EV world is its 4680 battery pack. Unveiled in 2020, Musk promised this new battery would make packs 56% cheaper, function as a structural part of the car’s chassis, have a higher energy density than current cells, and have faster change times than current Teslas. To achieve this, the 4680 is a far larger cylindrical cell at 46mm in diameter and 80mm in height (hence the name), which reduces the number of batteries needed in a pack, making it easier and cheaper to assemble. It was also designed to utilise cutting-edge battery chemistries to achieve higher energy densities and higher charge speeds, such as pure…
