Tesla, in three years an electric and autonomous car for 25 thousand dollars. And new super powerful batteries

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New York – Meet in the open air, in front of an audience of guests driving so many Tesla cars ready to honk to accompany the announcements. And there were announcements: Battery Day saw cutting edge automaker founder and CEO Elon Musk raise the curtain, at headquarters in Palo Alto, California, on the future of his own innovative battery production. In other words, the true heart of the vehicles, their power, efficiency and cost. And promise to launch a “fully autonomous electric car” on the roads within three years for just $ 25,000 to the general public. More generally, the multimillionaire-entrepreneur with the new initiatives is committed to achieving a complete vertical integration of the company’s production, to give life to a mini-empire with the aim of staying ahead of the competition again and again, intertwining mining interests. and chemicals to the design and launch of the batteries as well as the finished product, that is, sophisticated car models.

30-40% growth in 2020

The curtain on the news was raised by Musk, assisted by Deputy Chief Technology Officer Drew Baglino, following the annual shareholders meeting that immediately preceded the Battery Day event. During the meeting, he predicted that the company will continue to grow in the current year, despite the serious difficulties recognized and caused by the pandemic and the economic crisis. To be exact, Tesla is betting on an increase in deliveries of 30% or 40%, respecting previous predictions of reaching a total of close to half a million cars, after the jump of 50% in 2019.

Own and innovative batteries

But the spotlight has remained on the next crucial generations of batteries. Today Tesla entrusts the production of this technology to external partners such as Panasonic. Instead, the new batteries will be from the Tesla brand and will be made up of new and larger cells and equipped with a system of “boards”, that is, they will get by without a component that creates the connection between the cell and the destination of energy. They will be christened 4680, a name-number that reflects their size (46 by 80 millimeters). Above all, at the end of the day, they will be able to offer five times the energy capacity and six times the power and allow a 16% increase in vehicle autonomy, an improvement that, together with other changes in the study, will reach up to 54 percent . They will have what has been defined as “thermal” advantages, with less risk of fire. And not only that: constant innovation and then new battery technology will automatically allow you to significantly lower costs and consequently the prices of vehicles, making the goal of having 25,000 Tesla ready in three years more credible. dollars, which is competitive with equivalent gasoline models. In fact, the cell revolution, accompanied by new solutions in battery chemistry and design, will start by cutting costs by 14% and eventually cutting them in half.

“Much work still to be done”

“One of the problems that worries me the most is not having a truly accessible car and that is something we have to build in the future. However, to do this, we have to reduce the cost of batteries, ”Musk explicitly stated during the event. “The path to success is clear, but there is still a lot of work to do,” he admitted. The time horizon for a true advent of new batteries has been estimated to be a few years, with high-volume production no earlier than 2022. Musk, on the eve of the event, said that Tesla intends to increase purchases in the meantime. of battery cells from your current suppliers like Panasonic, LG and CATL. And he had warned that these would not be enough and that deficiencies are on the cards until and beyond 2022 in the absence of internal Tesla initiatives, now revealed. To move in this direction, the company already has its own experimental battery cell production line at the Fremont plant in California, along with car assembly. Musk also indicated that it will produce battery cells at its Grunheide factory in Germany.

Tensions in the title

The climate of high tension, between expectations and fears of disappointment, that has always surrounded Tesla was breathed on Wall Street also on the occasion of Battery Day and its announcements. Pending the event, the shares had fallen more than 5 percent. Shortly after, due to the long term still considered to fully complete the innovations, they burned another 7 percent. However, the group’s prices have almost quintupled since the beginning of 2020, from less than $ 90 to 425. And if in September they fell from peaks of almost $ 500, they have risen from recent lows of $ 330 despite an expected I do not enter. by investors and analysts, on the S&P 500 Index. Tesla has rebounded from a 5-to-1 stock split that has supported the appeal of stocks.