Tesla's Battery Day: The Biggest Takeaways

Tesla Inc's TSLA battery day was a highly anticipated event that ended up delivering a lot of updates on the company's plans. Here are some major announcements the company made that could help extend its electric vehicle lead in the years to come.

FSD Rewrite Coming Soon: CEO Elon Musk has been talking about a full self-driving rewrite for a while now. This is supposed to make the FSD software vastly more impressive. He said it should be available in a closed beta in about one month.

New 4860 Battery Cells: This is Tesla's new battery design. It is tabless, power increases by six times, energy by five times, range by 16%, and fewer batteries are needed to achieve the same range in vehicles today. A lot of research has gone into this, and these cells won't be in high volume production until sometime in 2022. Cost is going down as much as 50%, while bringing all the mentioned improvements.

Gets Rights To Lithium Deposit: During the presentation, Musk mentioned there was enough lithium in Nevada to power a 100% electric U.S. fleet. He also mentioned Tesla received the rights to a 10,000 acre-land in Nevada for lithium acquisition. Does this mean Tesla is getting into mining resources?

Developed Own's Aluminum Alloy: This is part of the Gigapress making parts for the Model Y. It seems Tesla will want to move all cars to this design. This will also allow the battery cells to become part of the car — reducing the volume needed for the battery pack, and thereby, increasing rigidity, improving safety, and lowering costs. 

New $25,000 EV: Tesla has a goal to produce a $25,000 fully-autonomous electric car within three years. This lines up well with the expected timeline of mass production of the new 4860 battery cells. No further details were given.

Plaid Model S Available To Order: The new Plaid Model S will be released at the end of 2021, the same time as Tesla's Cybertruck. It has 520+ miles of range, 0-60 of less than two seconds, and a quarter mile time of less than nine seconds. This is Tesla's answer to Lucid's Air EV. No more details were given, but many expect an exterior and interior design refresh. Cost starts at $139,900.

Benzinga's Take: While it looks like Tesla has impressive plans — for the long term — but the market wasn't too impressed with the near-term goals, with shares dropping as much as 7% in after-hours trading after the event ended.

Many expected the announcements to bring more immediate change to the company, rather than waiting two-three more years for the battery improvements to be rolled out. It does seem we will see the benefits of the new cells until at least the end of next year when Tesla is expected to start deliveries for the Plaid Model S and the Cybertruck.

Photo Courtesy: Tesla Inc.