The 4680 Cylindrical Cell: The Name “Tabless” and the Actual Structure Are Different

What Is at Issue: The Name Says “Tabless,” the Granted Claim Says “Many Tabs”

Claim 1 of US11749842B2, the granted patent protecting the “tabless” electrode of Tesla’s 4680 cell, does not claim a structure without tabs; it claims a structure in which a plurality of spaced-apart conductive portions are bent and contact the can’s lid (cap) in a concentric circular pattern. Read by the literal wording of its scope, the cell is closer to “a cell with a great many tabs” than “a cell with no tabs.” This article explains why this gap between the name and the claimed structure arose, and what it means for design-around and FTO (Freedom to Operate, the infringement-risk review).

Start with the industry context. After Tesla unveiled the 4680 cell at its 2020 Battery Day, large cylindrical cells of the 46 mm class entered the roadmaps of many companies. In a press release dated April 3, 2024, LG Energy Solution announced plans to mass-produce 46-series cylindrical batteries in Korea in the second half of that year and to run a 46-series line with an annual capacity of 36 GWh at its Arizona complex from 2026. Samsung SDI announced on March 31, 2025 that it had begun production of 46-series (4695) cylindrical batteries, with initial supply going to a U.S. customer for micro-mobility applications. BMW announced on September 9, 2022 that its next-generation “Neue Klasse” would use cylindrical cells with a 46 mm diameter.

The tension lies in the name. “Tabless” is used in marketing and the press as if it were a single category, but in a patent dispute what counts is not the name but the elements of the claims. This article answers three questions: why the conventional tab becomes a bottleneck, what exactly Tesla’s granted claim requires, and how those planning large cylindrical cells should read its scope.

Basic Principle: A Building with One Door vs. a Building Whose Entire Perimeter Is Doors

A conventional cylindrical cell (such as the 2170) stacks the cathode, separator and anode and rolls them into a “jelly roll,” then welds a metal lead tab to draw current out. By analogy, it is a building where thousands of people work but there is only one door. Current must travel a long way along the electrode to reach that door, and a bottleneck forms in front of it, concentrating resistance and heat in one place.

The larger the cell, the worse the problem. Calculating cylinder volume from the diameter and height encoded in the names (21×70 mm, 46×80 mm), the 4680 is about 5.5 times the 2170. The electrode is correspondingly longer, so a one-door structure hits clear limits. Tesla’s solution was to leave one edge of the electrode, across its width, as a conductive portion through which current flows, divide it into multiple pieces, and bend them to touch the lid. It is like cutting many small doors all around the building’s perimeter.

• Current path: distributed around the entire circumference rather than at one point at the electrode end
• Heat generation: resistive heat that used to concentrate at one spot is spread widely
• Company-announced effect: Samsung SDI announced that the tabless design of its 46-series connects the electrodes directly to the current collectors and cuts internal resistance by 90% (not a third-party verified figure)

Comparison: 2170 vs. 4680, and the Moves Around the 46-Series

The first table below preserves the comparison figures from the original article and adds a dimensions row. The cells-per-pack and welds-per-cell values are illustrative figures from the original; their primary source could not be confirmed.

Item	2170	4680
Format (diameter × height, mm)	21×70	46×80
Cell volume (relative)	1×	about 5.5×
Cells per pack (example)	about 4,400	about 830
Welds per cell	4	2
Electrode current-collection structure	Single lead tab	Multi-tab (commonly called tabless)

What this table says: As cell volume grows about 5.5-fold, the number of cells and welds falls, but the current path each cell must handle becomes longer. The key design variable of the 4680 is therefore not chemistry but the current-collection structure.

Party	Announcement	Date
Tesla	“Cell with a tabless electrode” granted in the U.S. (US11749842B2)	Granted 2023-09-05
BMW	46 mm diameter cylindrical cells for the Neue Klasse, two heights, volumetric energy density improved by more than 20%	2022-09-09
LG Energy Solution	46-series mass production in Korea (planned for H2 2024), 46-series in Arizona at 36 GWh per year (planned start 2026)	2024-04-03
Samsung SDI	Start of 46-series (4695) production, initial supply to a U.S. customer for micro-mobility	2025-03-31

What this table says: Around September 2023, when Tesla’s claim was granted, Korean cell makers and an automaker disclosed 46 mm-class cylindrical cell plans one after another. The more companies adopt the same form factor, the greater the need to read the scope of current-collection claims precisely.

Patent Perspective: A Granted Claim Narrower Than the Published One

Bibliographic data: The original article gave this patent as US11588184 (granted February 2023), but the granted Tesla patent “Cell with a tabless electrode” confirmed on Google Patents is US11749842B2. The applicant is Tesla, Inc., and the inventors are Kunio Tsuruta, Mikel Ehrlich Dermer and Rajeev Dhiman. The priority date is November 5, 2018 (U.S. provisional 62/755,685), the filing date is November 4, 2019, the pre-grant publication US20200144676A1 was published on May 7, 2020, and the grant date is September 5, 2023. The legal status is Active, and the expected expiry date is November 4, 2039.

Gist of claim 1 (restated): Granted claim 1 claims an energy storage device having all of the following elements.

• At one end (the proximal end) of the first substrate (electrode) is a second portion made of conductive material, and this conductive material consists of a plurality of conductive portions, each having a width
• The conductive portions are spaced apart from one another by non-conductive portions
• The first substrate, the inner separator and the second substrate are rolled about a central axis to form the cell
• The first end of the can has a first cap with a contact surface, and the spaced-apart conductive portions are bent and substantially in contact with the first cap
• The conductive portions form a concentric circular pattern in contact with the first cap

Claim 23 is a method of making the cell of claim 1 (stacking the substrates and separator and then rolling them); dependent claim 17 limits the cap contact surface to a weld, dependent claims 18 to 21 limit the width and spacing of the conductive portions (uniform or progressive), and dependent claim 22 limits the conductive portions to substantially fill the full diameter. The original article said that bump- or ridge-shaped features on the lid were “also claimed,” but contact-surface shapes on the lid such as concentric grooves, posts, pyramids and spikes are described in the embodiments of the specification and are not elements of granted claim 1.

Insight: “multi-tab” is not an industry interpretation but the literal wording of the granted claim. Claim 1 of the publication US20200144676A1 required roughly a portion with conductive material at the electrode end and the rolled structure, whereas granted claim 1 adds “a plurality of conductive portions spaced apart by non-conductive portions,” “bent,” and “a concentric circular pattern in contact with the cap.” Placing the published and granted claims side by side, one can read that the scope was narrowed during examination. The roughly three years and ten months from filing to grant is consistent with this reading. As a result, the name “tabless” sounds broad, but the actual scope is likely limited to “a structure in which conductive portions divided into multiple pieces are folded and attached directly to the cap.”

Avoidance points: Measured against the elements of claim 1, several design branches appear.

• A continuous uncoated-edge design that does not divide the conductive portion with non-conductive portions may lack the element “a plurality of spaced-apart conductive portions”
• A structure with a separate current collector plate between the conductive portions and the cap may keep a distance from the element “conductive portions substantially in contact with the first cap”
• A joining method that does not bend the conductive portions may lack the element “bent”

Design-around scenario (counterargument): However, even a continuous uncoated edge could become subject to a doctrine-of-equivalents analysis if, during winding and pressing, it effectively splits into multiple pieces and performs the same function in the same way. A structure with an inserted collector plate may also retain literal-infringement risk depending on how “substantially in contact” is construed. In addition, a continuation, US12463256B2, was granted on November 4, 2025, so even if this patent is avoided, the continuation’s claims must be compared separately. Foreign family members EP3878029A1, JP7649736B2, CN113039681A, WO2020096973A1 and KR20250112313A are also identified, so the scope in each country needs its own review.

Limits and Outlook

The effect of multiple conductive portions distributing the current path is structurally explainable, but not every challenge of large cylindrical cells has been solved. As the cell grows, its surface area relative to volume shrinks, making it harder to remove heat from the core, and the difficulty of the process that precisely divides and folds the electrode edge actually rises. The 4680 is not “an easy battery” but “a battery that is hard in a different way.”

The optimistic outlook is that the 46-series plans of Korean cell makers and automakers mesh, and the large cylindrical cell becomes one of the mainstream form factors. There is a counter-scenario as well. If the key forms of the current-collection structure are already densely covered by several companies’ patents, latecomers may spend more design resources on design-around than on performance, eroding their cost advantage accordingly. And if the EV demand adjustment drags on, the start-up of planned lines may be delayed.

The strategic alternative is not to treat “tabless” as one technology, but to break it into three elements, namely the method of dividing the conductive portion, the joining method and the cap shape, and map the rights landscape of each separately. Looked at element by element, it becomes clear which claims one’s own design overlaps and where there is room to steer around them.

Practical action: Those planning 46-series cylindrical cells should build a table comparing their electrode-edge design one-to-one with the five elements of claim 1 of US11749842B2 (plural conductive portions, spacing by non-conductive portions, rolling, bent conductive portions contacting the cap, concentric pattern), and add the claims of the continuation US12463256B2 to the same table.

Items requiring verification

• The primary source for the original’s cells-per-pack figures (2170 about 4,400, 4680 about 830) and welds per cell (4 and 2)
• The source and measurement conditions of the measured case cited in the original of a surface temperature of 70°C during 2C fast charging
• The actual start dates of LG Energy Solution’s 4680 pilot mass production in Ochang and pilot production at the Arizona plant
• Whether GM, Stellantis and Volvo have confirmed or are considering 4680 (46-series) adoption, and Samsung SDI’s plan to supply large cylindrical cells to BMW
• The specific elements of the granted claims of the continuation US12463256B2

Sources

1. Google Patents, US11749842B2 – Cell with a tabless electrode (Tesla, Inc.)
2. Google Patents, US20200144676A1 – Cell with a tabless electrode (pre-grant publication)
3. USPTO Official Gazette, US 12,463,256 B2 (2025-11-04)
4. BMW Group press release, BMW Group to use innovative round BMW battery cells in NEUE KLASSE from 2025 (2022-09-09)
5. BMW Group, Round battery cells for the Neue Klasse (Gen6)
6. LG Energy Solution press release, LG Energy Solution’s $5.5 Billion Stand-Alone Battery Manufacturing Complex Project in Arizona Well Underway (2024-04-03)
7. Samsung SDI press release, SAMSUNG SDI Begins Production of 46-Series Cylindrical Batteries and Initial Supply for U.S. Customer (2025-03-31)

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