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Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#151

Post by zitterbewegung »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #141
jqpabc123 wrote: post #5

For years, we’ve been told that the 4680 cell was the “holy grail” that would allow Tesla to produce a $25,000 electric car. For years, we've been told a lot of things that have never come to fruition. Just 6 months ago, we were told that Robotaxi would be available to half the US population by the end of the year. https://electrek.co/2025/07/23/elon-musk-with-straight-face-...

It's really amazing. Anyone still remembers Dojo ? 2 years ago or so they stated that they start to mass produce Dojo and it was supposed to be a top 5 supercomputer in the world by the end of 2024... https://thedriven.io/2023/06/22/tesla-to-start-building-its-...

The Dojo team left tesla to do their own ASIC. https://www.theverge.com/news/756706/tesla-dojo-team-shut-do...

Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#152

Post by toomuchtodo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #146
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSLA exposure is a call option on Musk succeeding (with success criteria being "TSLA price go up") regardless of reality. SpaceX is buying up Cybertrucks; is it illegal? Will anyone do anything about it? That sort of success (quasi fraud). The product is the stock and the hope there is a greater fool who will buy it eventually. SpaceX Buys over 1000 Cybertrucks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405984 - Decemb…

All BEV sales, not just Tesla, are tanking, at least in the USA. Ford and and others have retreated on their plans as well. Tesla may be worse off because of Musk's extracurricular antics but BEVs are not selling well.

In the US, which is due to policy, which is temporary. The rest of the world remains very hungry for affordable electric vehicles [1], which only China seems interested in producing at scale. Once that manufacturing capacity and distribution systems are spun up (BYD has its own car carrier for exports, the BYD Shenzhen, for example [2]), it will remain in production. "Can Tesla survive until regime change?" is an important question for those with economic exposure to it. Ironically, its peril is entirely self inflicted.

> BYD announced in 2022 its plans to launch a fleet of car carriers to build what it calls a “maritime bridge” to support its global sales growth and supply chain. The company said it would invest about $687 million to develop a fleet of eight car carriers. The first of the vessels, BYD Explorer No. 1 was delivered in January 2024 followed by BYD Changzhou in December 2024, and BYD Hefei, which was the company’s first owned PCTC. Each of the first three vessels has a capacity of 7,000 units. [My note: current BYD vertical integration marine fleet capacity is ~30k units when including the Shenzhen vessel mentioned above, but does not include capacity through third party charters]

[1] China EV Exports Worldwide Rise 87% Year over Year to 199,836 in November [2025] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-29/china-ev-... | https://archive.today/Q80Zs - December 29, 2025

[2] Chinese EV Manufacturer BYD Takes Delivery of [World's] Largest Capacity Car Carrier - https://maritime-executive.com/article/chinese-ev-manufactur... - April 24th, 2025

(think in systems; US light vehicle TAM is ~18M units/year, global TAM is ~90M units/year; Tesla US sales will finalize at ~600k units for 2025)

Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#153

Post by andsoitis »

awesome_dude wrote: post #122
mxschumacher wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and Tesla is valued at over 21x more than GM

Sorry, I lost the thread - GM looks twice as profitable, the same profit on half the revenue How does that justify Tesla's valuation? Is it based on the idea that the margin can be improved?

> Sorry, I lost the thread - GM looks twice as profitable

You got it reversed.

For Q3'2025, GM net income $1.3B on $48B revenue (down 0.3% YoY). Tesla, in contrast, generated $1.5B income on $28B revenue (up 12% YoY).

GM's income was down 56.6% while Tesla's was down 37%.

GM had higher operating income than Tesla, however. Explained by Tesla's more aggressive investment in R&D and AI.

Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#154

Post by enopod_ »

nutjob2 wrote: post #112
nxm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn’t the Europeans come out on top?

Because they're complacent and risk adverse.

VW, Mercedes, BMW, Peugeot, Polestar all make great EVs and they absolutely dominate the European market. They built manufacturing capacity in EU first for the domestic market, but are not competitive on the US market because of Trumps tariffs. China produces very cheap, they‘re still competitive even with tariffs. European car companies either have to build EV manufacturing capacity in the US first, or hope for the next administration.

Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#155

Post by moogly »

awesome_dude wrote: post #122
mxschumacher wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and Tesla is valued at over 21x more than GM

Sorry, I lost the thread - GM looks twice as profitable, the same profit on half the revenue How does that justify Tesla's valuation? Is it based on the idea that the margin can be improved?

It's based on "Tesla shareholders want the stock to live in a parallel universe".

Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#156

Post by Moto7451 »

Aren’t shaped prismatic cells the current state of the art anyway? The article mentioned BMW and Rivian using this size of cylindrical cell but I believe the latest from GM, Hyundai, and VW are all prismatic after the earlier designs were either pouch cells or cylindrical.

Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#157

Post by tclancy »

alright2565 wrote: post #85
ajross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what would it look like to directly sell EV batteries to consumers? what would have to happen? It looks like this: https://www.amazon.com/JESSY-3-7-Volt-Rechargeable-Battery/d... These cells aren't special, they're all off the shelf designs. The 4680 got some marketing spin, but really it was just a bigger form factor with a tweaked chemistry that apparently just didn't work out. And of course that means you can me…

Note that you should never buy raw cells from Amazon. They are always fake or under-spec. At the very least, this seller claims "Multiple Protections" when this is a fully unprotected cell. Distributors usually won't sell to regular consumers, but there are specialized retailers who base their reputation on selling quality goods, usually to the RC, flashlight, and vape market.

FWIW, this is definitely the opinion among Ego tool users on reddit. The aftermarket stuff comes with a discount and the possibility of a free surprise inside every box.

Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#159

Post by slashdave »

netdur wrote: post #33

i don't understand americans, two years ago i wanted a tesla, now i want a byd, you've let down the only american company competing against the chinese, all because of trump and politics

You had the opportunity to blame one person or an entire country. Which did you choose?

Re: Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%

#160

Post by LightBug1 »

lawlessone wrote: post #47
coliveira wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait another 6 months /s

https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/04/27/spacex-announces-plan-... Remember in 2016 when people would be on Mars by 2018?

Please don't be so cynical. With the right mix of drugs, it is actually possible.
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