Battery day thoughts and the impact on Tesla financials. Summary: I'm HODL and continuing to acquire on dips
First off the presentation was geared way in the direction of engineering and thus has most likely gone over the heads of most people. This is not a bad thing, but rather a very normal thing for Tesla. As this was the most likely outcome; all is right with the universe. Tesla demonstrated the tech with The Plaid S and thus continued in the tradition of leading the acceleration of sustainable transportation.
What was wholly unexpected was the massive decrease in costs for batteries as well as manufacturing facilities. This, for me, was unexpected, and honestly brought me so much joy. The presentation might have well been called "We've set a date for the end of oil". As an engineer who is fairly versed in Tesla tech, the only thing stopping Tesla at this point are force majeurs and macros of the like.
The quick summary. Tesla showed tech that is well beyond anything that has been put in any presentation or white paper and will exist in the world in a time-frame that is even close to tech demonstrated. If anyone knows of anything better please forward.
The dry electrode innovation alone is at least 10 years ahead of anything else. Why 10 years? In order to do what has just been demonstrated, even though it is about 2 years away from mass production is this: To start this process you need to attract the top battery talent, establish a think tank/brainstorming/iteration lab, try and fail on soooo many possible ways to get more efficiency out of the process which involves great amounts of money, time and patience ( Why patience? So many options in batteries end up being low production value but are initially great due to potential).
Just this innovation alone would secure a lead in the EV industry. However, so much more was shown with very reasonable timelines. Crazy that they have also gone to the extent of greatly improving the cathode production process. I had no idea how involved this was.
I think my favorite hidden gem was the slide that separated the types of new batteries into long cycle life, long range and mass sensitive. It is a lovely easter egg to the million mile battery (aka 4000 charge/discharge cycles), which to Tesla, is already in production as LFP in China and not a huge deal for this presentation.
Oh, and one more thing. It seems that Tesla has taken every page out of Apple's playbook.
1. Custom ASICs, designing own boards
2. Building SW and service stack to fully communicate back to custom infrastructure
3. Make changes to the supply chain to the lowest common supplier
However, TSLA is now adding pages
1. Objectionable best in class product; measurable features like range, acceleration, cargo space, safety...etc
2. Objectionable best in class value; measurable from cost, margins, free cash flow
3. AI custom ASICs for both training (Dojo) and serving (in car ASICs)
4. Leader in glass tech (coming with Cybertruck)
5. Leader in car entertainment
6. Leader in subscription services
7. Taking core tech in the power grid with utility scale and residential scale storage
8. Credit money from other car companies
9. I'm sure I left out many others