The Tesla battery pack is something of a triumph of packaging. The battery pack is integrated into the skateboard-like chassis of the car, making a self-contained drivetrain-and-energy-storage unit that allows for really flexible body packaging. It’s like the GM Hy-Wire concept, only with the mild benefit of existing in reality.
This teardown was undertaken by the skilled electron-heads over at EV West, a company whose electric conversions of classic cars we’ve covered before.
They got this Model S battery pack from a wrecked Model S at auction, and they use the individual 24V battery packs in their own projects, since they’re such good batteries.
Liberating all those 24V battery packs (each of which contains 444 individual battery cells) from the overall package is no small feat. There’s more little bolts holding the thing together than what you’d find in an entire Ikea-furnished house, and there’s some fascinating custom-designed larger bolts, too.
There are multiple layers of aluminum skin, moisture shields, and even some sort of blue fluid they call “Tesla Soup” that must be extracted. This process looks tedious and involved, but it’s all worth it once you get to those sweet, juicy battery packs inside.
So much more goes into these battery packs than you may realize. Watch and learn, pals.