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

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

#491

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-...

There is an entire Wikipedia article about Musk's (mostly) failed predictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

It’d be neat to have a dedicated site similar to killed by google.

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

#492
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this is a discussion about electric vehicles, I thought it could go without saying that I was talking about batteries in such vehicles, not batteries in consumer electronics that are 1,000 times smaller. To use an analogy: If someone stores a gallon of gasoline in a single-walled plastic container, that's probably OK. But storing 1,000 gallons of gasoline without certain safety measures is unsafe. So it goes wi…

Apart from Tesla very few EVs ever used cylindrical cells.

But that's usually just the packaging... if you open that up you'll find... cylindrical cells

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

#493
post #412
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all paid for by global satellite internet revenue. Huh? You think starlink is funding space-x? If they lost all government and private launch business tomorrow and had to rely on Stalink revenues to stay in business they wouldn’t last through next month. > His electric crossover/SUV was the best selling car in America. It was, and then he fried his brain and decided to support fascists across the globe and can’t un…

I dont think Starlink can actually make money without government subsidies and a whole lot of inactive users. It simply cannot scale, the width spot beams are limited by physics - they cannot get small enough to get the density needed.

I think that's the point? I'd always assumed Starlink was a way to fill in coverage gaps in low-density areas where cable would cost more than it was worth, not cities?

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

#494

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-...

> For years, we've been told a lot of things that have never come to fruition.

Sometimes I wonder if Musk's astronomical pay package is an engineered rug pull on Tesla's investors. Imagine if they know the jig is up and intend to fleece stockholders one last time by leaving them holding the bag when the house of cards comes crumbling down.

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

#495

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-...

And Tesla's ability to tightly align promises with engineering and supply chain execution seems to be slipping

There's never been any such ability. Musk has been promising actual full self driving within a year or two yearly or multiple times a year since 2015 (and partial such since 2014 at least).

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

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are borderline lies that deceived both customers and investors.

Put that on your resumé and you'll easily land a cushy job in Washington.

> Put that on your resumé and you'll easily land a cushy job in Washington.

I think you have it backwards. The entire tech bro scene reeks of fraud schemes, and the most successful ones seem to be pulled into all kinds of government schemes as well.

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

#497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still don’t understand how they haven’t been sued for the hundreds of millions they took as a deposit for a new Roadster…8 years ago! Because you can cancel your reservation and get your deposited refunded. See terms at Tesla.com

Same site as the OP has an article stating Tesla makes it difficult, and if you put 50k in 8 years ago and obtain 50k now, I think you lost a lot of money. I have no opinion on the process itself though, I don’t know enough about Tesla as I’m only interested in the engineering, just wanted to point out the inflation losses.

> if you put 50k in 8 years ago and obtain 50k now, I think you lost a lot of money.

This is a textbook sunk cost fallacy.

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

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point is it fair to call the list something other than ‘predictions’

Those are borderline lies that deceived both customers and investors.

After the first few some responsibility begins shifting to those still believing him.

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

#499
post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not pretend that Trump knew or cared what USAID was. Musk was extremely hands-on with the dismantling of that agency specifically. I didn’t share my thoughts, I shared a Lancet article calculating the death toll. I leave the math, the comparisons, and the moral judgments as an exercise for the reader.

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I don't speak for mullingitover, but… "other" reasons? Surely all the stuff he's done are the reasons?

And Musk seems to have tarred himself:

Tesla sales are down a lot even in places where the market is growing, in part because it was lefty liberals who were the original primary market for EVs.

Musk's support for Trump (who openly hates eco-friendly anything and appears to be tanking the US economy with inflation and tariffs and the only growth sector being AI DCs) also appears to be the reason the entire EV market in the US is going down.

He's also having spats with various national leaders. But… look, in UK, Keir Starmer has catastrophically poor opinion poll ratings, Musk's managing to bob around the same level, slightly worse, in part due to tweeting things seen as calling for a civil war in the UK.

Similar in Germany. Where the Gigafactory is… ah, still a building site, not having needed to expand to the full potential of the water licence it had. (A factoid I only know about due to comparisons with the combined AI data centre use across the state of Arizona).

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

#500
post #161
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>he's not the richest man on earth for nothing. He engineers perceptions, finance, and govt funds, not technology. Every report and available evidence shows he is barely technologically astute, nevermind genius; the accomplishments of his teams are despite him not because of him. Which is why a better description would be: The Greediest Man On Earth.

Just stating that he does seem to inspire and build teams/orgs that do great things. Both SpaceX and Tesla are accomplishments if you consider where their competitors are.

Just imagine how much more successful they'd be if Elon Musk wasn't meddling and leeching from them!
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