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Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, stands at the construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide, near Berlin, on September 3, 2020.
Patrick Pleul | alliance of images | fake images
Shares of Tesla plunged 4% in premarket trading Tuesday after Chief Executive Elon Musk sought to manage expectations ahead of the electric carmaker’s “battery day” presentation.
Musk’s firm is expected to announce details Tuesday about a new type of battery cell it has developed. Analysts had hoped the technology could help Tesla maintain its edge over rivals in the electric vehicle space, but Musk dashed those hopes on Monday when he warned of obstacles to reaching mass production.
“An important note on Tesla’s battery day will be released tomorrow,” Musk said via Twitter, often his reference for communications about the company. “This affects long-term production, especially Semi, Cybertruck and Roadster, but what we announce will not reach serious high-volume production until 2022.”
The billionaire said Tesla would increase purchases of battery cells from suppliers Panasonic, LG and CATL, but cautioned that “we still anticipate a significant shortage in 2022 and beyond, unless we also act ourselves.” Tesla has built a prototype manufacturing line for battery cells in a laboratory in Fremont, California, near the company’s car plant in the United States.
As a result, Tesla shares fell more than 6% in after-hours trading, after closing nearly 2% higher on Monday at $ 449.39. Still, the firm’s shares have risen more than 400% so far this year thanks to a stock split and optimism around the entry into the S&P 500. On Tuesday, the firm’s shares fell 4 % before marketing to trade around $ 431.
– CNBC Lora kolodny contributed to this report.
