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Tesla 4680 cells compared with BYD Blade and CATL Qilin structural batteries
The battle for the dominance of the electric vehicle sector would likely be determined by the market’s key battery makers. With this in mind, companies such as BYD, CATL, and Tesla — all of whom are exploring the structural battery form factor — have the chance to become the trailblazers of the next generation of electric car batteries.
During its Battery Day event, Tesla announced its 4680 cells, which are used alongside the company’s structural battery pack. BYD, on the other hand, has also released its Blade batteries, which also adopt a non-modular approach. CATL’s Qilin batteries are in the same segment, with its structural battery design.
Electric vehicle battery enthusiast Jordan Giesige of YouTube’s The Limiting Factor channel recently conducted a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of Tesla, BYD, and CATL’s next-generation structural packs. Each battery pack was evaluated according to several factors, such as design, rigidity, packing and energy density, and safety, before being ranked. It should be noted that the figures used in the comparisons are drawn from estimates and materials released by Tesla, BYD, and CATL themselves, not current real-world observations.
As noted by Giesige, Tesla’s 4680 structural battery packs utilize hundreds of cylindrical cells with a cooling ribbon in between every other row of cells. A lid is then placed on top and polyurethane foam is injected into the pack. This polyurethane hardens, and the combination of the foam and the battery cells forms a rigid, honeycomb-type structure.
CATL Qilin batteries, which could be fitted with both nickel and iron-based cells, integrate thermal pads, the liquid cooling plate, and the cross bracing to create what could be described as structural cooling. The structural cooling is placed between each row of prismatic battery cells, and the cells themselves are placed into the pack directly without any modules. BYD Blade batteries use iron-based prismatic cells, though these cells are longer and thinner than those used by CATL. The cells are then stretched across the BYD Blade battery pack, allowing the cells themselves to replace conventional steel beams.
In the rankings of the next-generation batteries, the YouTube host noted that Tesla’s 4680 structural battery pack would likely be the most rigid among its peers. Tesla’s 4680 pack loses out in terms of packing density, however, as BYD and CATL’s use of prismatic cells maximizes volumetric energy density. With this in mind, and considering that CATL’s Qilin batteries can be fitted with high-energy density nickel-based cells, a nickel-based Qilin battery would likely be more energy dense than a nickel-based Tesla 4680 pack or a BYD Blade structural battery, which uses less energy dense iron-based cells.
As for cooling, Giesige noted that the BYD Blade batteries’ plate cooling would likely fall short of the Tesla 4680 pack and CATL Qilin battery’s cooling systems. In its marketing materials, CATL highlighted that cooling the sides of the Qilin battery increases the pack’s cooling area four times. Tesla’s 4680 battery also uses better cooling than BYD’s Blade batteries with its side cooling system, though it would likely not be as good as the cooling of CATL’s Qilin structural packs.
While BYD’s Blade batteries lose out in cooling, they are also likely the safest among its peers. This is because the BYD Blade battery uses iron-based cells, which have a higher decomposition and lower heat release temperature than the nickel-based cells used in Tesla’s 4680 cells and CATL’s nickel-based Qilin batteries. An iron-based Qilin battery comes second to the BYD Blade, partly due to its use of shorter and thicker prismatic cells, which may trap more heat.
A Qilin pack with nickel-based cells was ranked last in terms of safety by the battery enthusiast, as Tesla’s 4680 pack with nickel-based cells features several safety systems, such as an overpressure mechanism on the bottom of the cells themselves. Since 4680 cells are also smaller than the prismatic cells used in the BYD Blade and CATL Qilin, they contain less energy. The 4680 cells themselves are enclosed in a thick shell as well, which are about 2-3 times thicker than a conventional battery.
Overall, Giesige noted that Tesla’s 4680 cells are likely the best all-rounder compared to its peers in the structural battery segment. The overall scores of the BYD Blade and CATL Qilin batteries bode well for Tesla’s future, however, as the companies could become suppliers of the EV maker in the future. CATL is already supplying Tesla with LFP batteries today, and BYD is heavily rumored to be a Tesla supplier as well. In a way, the analysis of the next-generation structural EV batteries shows that Tesla is not alone in pushing the battery industry forward.
Watch The Limiting Factor‘s full analysis in the video below.
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Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Tesla has officially ended the option to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright, a move that was announced for the United States market in January by CEO Elon Musk.
The driver assistance suite is now exclusively available in the U.S. as a subscription, which is currently priced at $99 per month.
Tesla moved away from the outright purchase option in an effort to move more people to the subscription program, but there are concerns over its current price and the potential for it to rise.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Although Tesla moved back the deadline in other countries, it has now taken effect in the U.S. on Sunday morning. Tesla updated its website to reflect this:
🚨 Tesla has officially moved the outright purchase option for FSD on its website pic.twitter.com/RZt1oIevB3
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 15, 2026
There are still some concerns regarding its price, as $99 per month is not where many consumers are hoping to see the subscription price stay.
Musk has said that as capabilities improve, the price will go up, but it seems unlikely that 10 million drivers will want to pay an extra $100 every month for the capability, even if it is extremely useful.
Instead, many owners and fans of the company are calling for Tesla to offer a different type of pricing platform. This includes a tiered-system that would let owners pick and choose the features they would want for varying prices, or even a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual pricing option, which would incentivize longer-term purchasing.
Although Musk and other Tesla are aware of FSD’s capabilities and state is is worth much more than its current price, there could be some merit in the idea of offering a price for Supervised FSD and another price for Unsupervised FSD when it becomes available.
Elon Musk
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. A new financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year.
Elon Musk’s bankers are looking to trim the debt that xAI has taken on over the past few years, following the company’s merger with SpaceX, a new report from Bloomberg says.
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. Bankers are trying to create some kind of financing plan that would trim “some of the heavy interest costs” that come with the debt.
The financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year. Musk has essentially confirmed that SpaceX would be heading toward an IPO last month.
The report indicates that Morgan Stanley is expected to take the leading role in any financing plan, citing people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley, along with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are all expected to be in the lineup of banks leading SpaceX’s potential IPO.
Since Musk acquired X, he has also had what Bloomberg says is a “mixed track record with debt markets.” Since purchasing X a few years ago with a $12.5 billion financing package, X pays “tens of millions in interest payments every month.”
That debt is held by Bank of America, Barclays, Mitsubishi, UFJ Financial, BNP Paribas SA, Mizuho, and Société Générale SA.
X merged with xAI last March, which brought the valuation to $45 billion, including the debt.
SpaceX announced the merger with xAI earlier this month, a major move in Musk’s plan to alleviate Earth of necessary data centers and replace them with orbital options that will be lower cost:
“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale. To harness even a millionth of our Sun’s energy would require over a million times more energy than our civilization currently uses! The only logical solution, therefore, is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called “space” for a reason.”
The merger has many advantages, but one of the most crucial is that it positions the now-merged companies to fund broader goals, fueled by revenue from the Starlink expansion, potential IPO, and AI-driven applications that could accelerate the development of lunar bases.
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Tesla pushes Full Self-Driving outright purchasing option back in one market
Tesla announced last month that it would eliminate the ability to purchase the Full Self-Driving software outright, instead opting for a subscription-only program, which will require users to pay monthly.
Tesla has pushed the opportunity to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright in one market: Australia.
The date remains February 14 in North America, but Tesla has pushed the date back to March 31, 2026, in Australia.
NEWS: Tesla is ending the option to buy FSD as a one-time outright purchase in Australia on March 31, 2026.
It still ends on Feb 14th in North America. https://t.co/qZBOztExVT pic.twitter.com/wmKRZPTf3r
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 13, 2026
Tesla announced last month that it would eliminate the ability to purchase the Full Self-Driving software outright, instead opting for a subscription-only program, which will require users to pay monthly.
If you have already purchased the suite outright, you will not be required to subscribe once again, but once the outright purchase option is gone, drivers will be required to pay the monthly fee.
The reason for the adjustment is likely due to the short period of time the Full Self-Driving suite has been available in the country. In North America, it has been available for years.
Tesla hits major milestone with Full Self-Driving subscriptions
However, Tesla just launched it just last year in Australia.
Full Self-Driving is currently available in seven countries: the United States, Canada, China, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
The company has worked extensively for the past few years to launch the suite in Europe. It has not made it quite yet, but Tesla hopes to get it launched by the end of this year.
In North America, Tesla is only giving customers one more day to buy the suite outright before they will be committed to the subscription-based option for good.
The price is expected to go up as the capabilities improve, but there are no indications as to when Tesla will be doing that, nor what type of offering it plans to roll out for owners.
Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
