Tesla has acknowledged that the upcoming Cybertruck and Semi could feature 800-volt architectures.
While the vast majority of electric vehicles currently on sale feature 400-volt systems, the industry is quickly shifting towards 800-volt architectures and being led by the likes of the Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron GT, Hyundai Ioniq 5, and Kia EV6. While Tesla is an EV leader, all of its current models have 400-volt systems and are at risk of being left behind.
After being quizzed about why Tesla hasn’t gone down the 800-volt route on the company’s recent quarterly earnings call with the media, Tesla senior vice president of Powertrain and Energy Engineering, Andrew Baglino, said it doesn’t make sense to shift smaller vehicles like the Model 3 and Model Y to 800 volts, InsideEVs reports
Read More: The Electric Vehicle Industry Will Shift To Advanced 800-Volt Architectures
“For the smaller platform vehicles like 3 and Y, there’s some wins and losses with 800 volts,” he said. “Not everything is better. And so, we look at that platform, and we’re not like ignoring the reality that you can go to a higher voltage, but there’s nothing really encouraging us to do so on that platform.”
Baglino acknowledged that a higher-voltage platform does have advantages and could prove more beneficial for larger vehicles from the carmaker, such as the Cybertruck and Semi.
“On bigger vehicles, where you’re talking about higher power on the charging side or higher power from the battery to the power electronics or you need more torque, the current requirements go up,” he noted. “There’s a little bit more semiconductor and actual conductor savings of going to the higher voltage. And so, we do consider that for Semi and Cybertruck. But for the 3/Y platform where we’ve got everything running, the benefit is questionably small.”
Baglino’s statement about the Cybertruck and Semi potentially adopting an 800-volt system is intriguing. For starters, it has been four-and-a-half years since the Semi was first unveiled and two-and-a-half years since the Cybertruck was announced and one would have thought Tesla would have decided long ago whether to go down the 400-volt or 800-volt route with these models. But according to Baglino, it is something the automaker is “considering.” If that’s true, Tesla had better decide quickly as volume production of both models is expected to start in 2023.
