Tesla CEO unveils battery advances
More affordable cars with longer range to follow
Tesla is working on new battery technology that CEO Elon Musk says will enable the company within the next three years to make sleeker, more affordable cars that can travel dramatically longer distances on a single charge.
But the battery breakthroughs that Musk unveiled this week at a highly anticipated event didn’t impress investors. They were hoping Tesla’s technology would mark an even bigger leap forward and propel the company’s soaring stock to even greater heights.
Tesla’s shares shed more than 10% Wednesday, after Musk announced outlined the plans for the Palo Alto company. That deepened a downturn that began Tuesday as investors began to brace for a potential letdown. Musk raised those worries with a series of tweets, warning that Tesla’s new battery technology might not be ready for highvolume production until 2022.
Musk reiterated that timetable during Tuesday’s showcase at the Fremont factory, and then added that it might take up to three years before the battery technology translates into a new Tesla model selling for $25,000.
That would be a dramatic markdown from Tesla’s cheapest car now, the Model 3, a sedan that starts at $35,000 but usually ends up costing buyers more than $40,000.
“We don’t have a truly affordable car, and that is something we want in the future,” Musk said during an
event shaped by the restrictions imposed by a pandemic that requires people to keep their distance.
Besides lowering the price, Musk promised the new battery technology would help Tesla reduce the size of its vehicles by about 10% and extend their range by 56%. That projection implies that the Tesla cars using the new batteries will be able to travel 500 miles or more on a single charge, surpassing the distance many gascombustion cars can traverse before needing to refuel.
Musk took the stage before a mostly online audience, although there was a small group of shareholders who won a lottery for the right to sit in Tesla vehicles parked in a lot near the factory.
“It is a little hard to read the room with everyone in cars,” Musk joked as he began his presentation during an early phase of the event that was devoted to Tesla’s annual meeting of shareholders.
But the shareholders in attendance frequently beeped their horns to provide a different form of applause as Musk rattled off Tesla’s accomplishments since the company held its last annual meeting 15 months ago.
Since then, Tesla has posted four consecutive quarters of profits to reverse a long history of losses, while boosting its production and laying the groundwork for future expansion by opening or beginning work on three more factories in Shanghai, Berlin and Austin, Texas.
All that progress has caused
Tesla’s stock price to soar by fivefold this year and boost the company’s market value to nearly $400 billion.
No one has benefited more from the runup than Musk, who has seen his estimated wealth climbed to $89 billion — the fifthlargest fortune in the world, based on estimates by Forbes magazine.
“What happens when companies get bigger is things tend to slow down. We are going to speed up,” Musk said Tuesday.
He said he believes that Tesla will remain a step ahead of its competition in the electric vehicle market and persuade more consumers to abandon gascombustion cars with its new battery technology. The breakthroughs that he outlined Tuesday involve some highly technical changes to the composition and design of batteries, along with new manufacturing processes.
Even as Tesla tries to set new standards in batteries, Musk made it clear that the company will also continue to rely on Panasonic and other suppliers.
Musk has a history of being too ambitious in his promises. For instance, 17 months ago, he bragged that Tesla was on the verge of breakthroughs in autonomous driving technology that would enable the company to have a fleet of robotic taxis on the road by the end of this year.
He has since backpedaled slightly from that goal, although Tuesday he said he believes Tesla’s $25,000 car will be capable of driving on its own.