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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%

#661

Post by eichin »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #651
monooso wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want as basic a car as possible that goes forward when I press the gas and stops when I press the brakes. GP was talking about HUD and "new features" in the context of a $60k car. Presumably your desired "basic car" would cost considerably less.

What "new features" are we talking about? What else do you need in a car? Do you complain about "new features" in an expensive bottle of whiskey? Or a nice computer? No, you want the basics done really well and made with the highest of quality.

When I went from a 2006 mini to a 2021 polestar 2, there were a bunch of things that were either "up in class" or "15 years makes things better" - traction control, non-invasive lane-assist (with invasive options), per-driver (per-keyfob really) seat adjustment memory, charge-aware navigation, radar cruise-control, 360° camera fusion, headlight washers, kick-to-open trunk, interior pre-warm (including seats, as a software upgrade), smart (camera-based) auto-dim of high beams, mirror-retract when parked, mirror tilt when backing up, retractable trailer hitch... little of this is structural, it's just an accumulation of details and attention paid to them.

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

#662

Post by myvoiceismypass »

angott wrote: post #569
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #454

Tesla had a ridiculous lead over everyone and they spaffed it. No new features, no HUD, no dashboard. They want 60k for cars which have nothing in them. Other companies have now ripped the software and the iPad, so they have nothing unique. All they had to do was continue to improve the product. They didn’t even try.

> They want 60k for cars which have nothing in them. Other companies have now ripped the software and the iPad, so they have nothing unique You are not wrong about Tesla's base models like the 3 and Y being light on traditional 60k car features, but the second part is much more debatable. With the exception of some Chinese car manufacturers, almost no Western car makers have managed to match Tesla's software stack. I…

Why do cars need weekly software updates? Or - more specifically, what sorts of new software-enabled features (or bug fixes) besides FSD are rolling out weekly in Teslas? Genuinely curious! Is there downtime?

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

#663

Post by modeless »

yibg wrote: post #461
modeless wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He regularly delivers on promises. What he consistently fails to deliver on is timelines.

I guess that's true if you stretch timelines to infinity. I'm still waiting on: - L5 autonomous driving - $35k Teslas - Hyperloop - Lunar trips to the moon on spacex - Humans on Mars But I guess if we just consider those delayed, then all good.

FSD 14.2 is available to the public and anyone who has tried it can tell you it is an incredibly impressive system that is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was just six months ago and by far the best available to purchase worldwide. FSD robotaxis with no people in them have been seen on the streets of Austin. I expect that this one is within two years of being done.

As has been pointed out, the Model 3 has been below $35k inflation adjusted many times. There's been a lot of inflation, you may have noticed. And if that's not good enough for you, they did actually sell a $35k model for a while, though I doubt they made money on it.

I don't recall Elon promising that he would build a hyperloop on any timeline. In fact I remember him saying that he wasn't going to work on it personally.

SpaceX is under contract with NASA to build the Moon lander. I don't know what else you want here.

Humans on Mars is still SpaceX's main objective and their actions are consistent with that. Nobody would have started the insanely ambitious Starship program just to launch things into Earth orbit or the Moon.

I won't go through all the things that Elon has promised and achieved late, but the list is long and impressive.

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

#664

Post by Tepix »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #125
SonOfKyuss wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually get a kick out of Eletrek’s roasting of Elon and Tesla, but if you read a few of their articles, it’s clear they don’t like him. Lots of opinions and editorializing in the articles. I have no problem with that, you just have to realize where they are coming from and base your interpretation accordingly

The reason for that is actually very funny. Electrek guy (Fred) was one of the main propagandist for Tesla's cult - he 'earned' 2 free Tesla Roadsters for his convincing enough people to buy a Tesla. It was only once he realized that he has been duped and those will never materialize that the coverage turned negative.

I think Elon going full nazi also had a major influence on the changing judgement of Tesla.

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

#665

Post by formerly_proven »

angott wrote: post #569
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #454

Tesla had a ridiculous lead over everyone and they spaffed it. No new features, no HUD, no dashboard. They want 60k for cars which have nothing in them. Other companies have now ripped the software and the iPad, so they have nothing unique. All they had to do was continue to improve the product. They didn’t even try.

> They want 60k for cars which have nothing in them. Other companies have now ripped the software and the iPad, so they have nothing unique You are not wrong about Tesla's base models like the 3 and Y being light on traditional 60k car features, but the second part is much more debatable. With the exception of some Chinese car manufacturers, almost no Western car makers have managed to match Tesla's software stack. I…

> I can't think of another car brand that makes its own silicon, ships OTA updates weekly, runs an in-house OS that isn't an outdated Android skin, and tightly integrates media, navigation, charging, and energy management all in the same platform.

VW (ID software 3/4/5), Mercedes (MBUX).

They don't update weekly (I don't think so, anyway), but I don't see how that would be inherently positive. They should be able to update weekly (e.g. security patches), sure, but car software should probably not be changing week-to-week for years on end.

That being said, since the US is basically a captive and stagnating market for EVs now, it seems most models from European makers are not available in the US anyway.

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

#666

Post by RhythmFox »

donohoe wrote: post #566
terminalshort wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not journalism anymore when you take one fact and then use it as the basis for wild speculation.

I re-read it. Very little is speculative and nothing I’d label as “wild”.

It's 'wild' to this person because it challenges their opinion on Musk and Tesla I have to guess. This is a classic 'it is bad reporting because it does not agree with my worldview' take, aka 'fake news'.

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

#667

Post by array_key_first »

refurb wrote: post #527
array_key_first wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cars are higher quality and, more importantly, cheaper. US manufacturers can't make a cheap car to save their lives. The average age of cars on US roads is now 13 years, nobody can afford new cars. There's a huge market opportunity here that all our manufacturers are missing, seemingly on purpose. BYD, and others, would absolutely sweep the competition.

High quality? I’ve ridden in several. It’s an all plastic deal with a flimsy feel. The ride is horrible and from the reviews I e read the handling is terrible.

Handling on basically all EVs except maybe what porsche is doing is terrible. And American cars are all plastic and flimsy, and this includes Tesla. But they're also much more expensive.

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

#668

Post by PTOB »

misiti3780 wrote: post #643
marticode wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ugly, poorly built, expensive and not very good as a truck. A gas engine will not fix all these flaws.

i actually love the way it looks. i dont own it but i find it some inspiring that a company had to have audacity to create something so futuristic - what are you driving that is so beautiful ?

1958 Chevy Corvette. Looks way more futuristic.

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

#669

Post by cosmic_cheese »

kortilla wrote: post #645
locknitpicker wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is it had the range of a golf cart. So it basically ruled out 98% of the population that needs a car that can go on road trips. You're trying to use weasel words to try to hide the fact that the Nissan Leaf, which was released in 2010 and elected world car of the year, was the world's most successful electric car and top-selling electric car until 2020. That does not happen if 98% of anything doesn't like…

> That does not happen if 98% of anything doesn't like it. Actually it does. Electric car sales were so anemic during that time claiming the title made it trivial to be supported by 2% of the population. > Any claim involving "road trips" is a red herring because the Nissan Leaf was designed as a city car used in daily commutes, which means a daily driver for your 1h trips. This is by far the most popular use of a ca…

I dunno, as someone who was raised in a pretty rural area and has since lived in both cities and suburbs, I think the need for long distance driving is dramatically overstated.

From my rural hometown, the drive to varying degrees of civilization (just big enough to have a small shopping center up to the state capital) is about 25 and 75 miles, respectively. Cities sized in between are around 40-50mi out. The drive to the nearest tiny town for groceries and such is about 2 miles.

I currently live in a suburb and everything one might need, including an international airport, is within a 30mi radius, with the majority of that being within a 5mi radius.

With that in mind and remembering that the bulk of the population lives in cities or their surrounding metro areas, "city cars" are viable for more people than they aren't. Sometimes they'd be better suited as secondary vehicles dedicated to errands, which at first glance might seem more expensive, but the dramatically better fuel economy of e.g. a tiny hybrid or even plain gas car quickly adds up, and in states with cheap electricity combined with scheduled charging at off-peak times, the scales are tilted even further if you have a plug-in hybrid or full EV. The up-front cost is higher, but you quickly make that back from not having to haul the big gas hungry SUV or truck around all over the place.

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

#670

Post by itsamario »

fencepost wrote: post #88

Doing a quick bit of searching based on the 4680 makes me think that there has been or will be a change from NMC811 to LFP chemistry in the 4680, including one article talking about changing to US and European-based in-house manufacturing and reducing dependence on China. I'm no fan of Tesla, but this looks like the collapse of the contract with the supplier for the battery chemistry they've moved away from, aka "no…

This is more recent and informative.

https://youtu.be/-sN2_Lp10lw?si=blBPFQ9jy2L8rCNp

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