Sorry if this has already been discussed before, but there are just too many messages here to be able to keep up, but what if a competitor of Tesla came with a battery breakthrough, like say lighter with 2000mi on a charge and faster charging, i.e. completely crushes Tesla tech, how would that affect Tesla? I know Tesla cars are more than their range, i.e. with autopilot, FSD, OAU's, infotainment, etc.. but wouldn't that seriously dampen Tesla's potential as an investment?
Lets do a thought experiment. Lets say I make some break through, potential 2000mi car on paper because I developed in a small scale a battery that is 5x denser than Tesla's.
Step 1.
Scale it up, hook a bunch together and see if it'll explode
Step 2.
See if it'll explode under extreme stress
Step 3.
See if it'll explode after the wheels turning at high speed for 1000 miles
Step 4.
See if it'll explode after 300k miles
Step 5.
See if it'll explode if we charge it at crazy speed in extreme temperatures.
See where I'm going with this? Validation for safety will take YEARS. Then there's the question of scaling it up at an adequate cost. This is not one of those things where Tesla is blind sided by some secret battery tech that has been validated for the past 10 years ready for mass production. Elon has a team always searching for the next breakthrough with safety and scalability in mind. I have confidence in Maxwell because they have clearly demonstrated this to Musk with a high probable path to higher density and scalability while the rest you read in science journals fell short.