Use Tesla cells to make battery for ebike?

Hello, I just got a used bike to convert to an ebike and I was wondering if I could use harvested Tesla cells to make the battery. Being Tesla, wouldn't they be great batteries?

I searched for why/why not on the the forums but I couldn't find anything which surprised me.

There's a number of threads that discuss the various models of cells that Tesla has used, if you want the specifics. Some threads have comparisons between them and other cells. Sorry I don't have links, but they should be easy to find via "tesla", though probably a fair bit of reading.

There isn't anything spectactular about any of them, compared to other similar cells.

Depending on your specific needs, space, shape, budget, and expected performance, there are much better cells to build batteries from, with much less trouble to do so.

Hi uuhoever , welcome to ES. The answer to your question might be yes, it might be no. Let me explain.

The Tesla cells you get are probably not going to be new. However they might have a life left to them. To know best you would have to test each cell individually to find it's capacity because your battery is only as good as your weakest cell. So if you want to power an electric bike or other vehicle with used cells, go for it. Just know all used batteries have used battery problems. (That means loss of original capacity) and when a used cell goes out, you have to extract it and replace it with a working cell that matches all the other cells in your battery so it will balance well enough. It can be a lot of work. The kind of work you most likely won't have if you use new cells.

You can find new cells from reputable manufactures like Samsung, Sony and LG and avoid all the used cell problems. Or, get a pre-made battery from a reputable seller like ebikes.ca or ping battery or EM3ev.

Now don't get me wrong ,it is possible to build a good battery with used cells. Others have done it with good success. But, used cells won't last as long as new cells. And, you don't really know what the used cells have been through.

My recommendation is this, if you want to build a battery, go with with new cells for your battery build, unless, you can get a great "deal" on used cells, and don't mind putting in the time and brain power to keep your used cell pack up and running.

Thanks for the responses. I did search for 'Tesla' and spent hours reading through stuff that was not related at all to making a battery to the point I was wondering if there was something wrong about using Tesla cells on ebikes. I guess as you pointed out it is just not something that people do very often because they are used cells in general.