17 ms·

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

672 points by coloneltcb 9mo ago

nemomarx 9mo ago
Tesla stock dipped a little today it seems but it's still up 8 percent over the month. I really don't understand those investors and how they price a struggling company so highly.
- toomuchtodo 9mo ago
  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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405984 - December 2025 Last week: Elon Musk's SpaceX bought tens of millions worth of Cybertrucks Tesla can't sell - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46317462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46317462 - December 2025 (6 comments) Elon Musk's SpaceX and XAI Are Buying Tesla's Unsold Cybertrucks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45572152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45572152 - October 2025 (8 comments) Tesla's European Sales Plunge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46391352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46391352 - December 2025 (3 comments) Tesla US sales drop to nearly 4-year low in November - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46248803 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46248803 - December 2025 (60 comments) Tesla looks to reset strategy amid sluggish India sales - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46084554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46084554 - November 2025 (2 comments) Tesla's European sales tumble nearly 50% in October - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46063634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46063634 - November 2025 (57 comments) Tesla sees worst sales performance in China in years - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45881302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45881302 - November 2025 (1 comment) BYD Pulls Ahead of Tesla in UK, Closes Sales Gap in Germany - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45859618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45859618 - November 2025 (35 comments) Tesla's German car sales more than halve in October as wider EV sales jump - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45827314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45827314 - November 2025 (135 comments) [Flagged] Tesla sales in Germany have cratered from last year, data shows - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826384 - November 2025 (28 comments) Study: The Musk Partisan Effect on Tesla Sales - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825382 - November 2025 (2 comments) ("Without the Musk partisan effect, Tesla sales between October 2022 and April 2025 would have been 67-83% higher, equivalent to 1-1.26 million more vehicles. Musk’s partisan activities also increased the sales of other automakers' electric and hybrid vehicles 17-22% because of substitution, and undermined California’s progress in meeting its zero-emissions vehicle target.") Tesla Cybertruck sales are flatlining - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45573985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45573985 - October 2025 (17 comments) Tesla Pivots to Robots as Investors Question Sales and Soaring Valuation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228566 - September 2025 (3 comments)
  - coliveira 9mo ago
    The "new economy" is full of self-dealing. That's the result of loose (or non-existing) regulations on monopolies. It all starts with Wall Street controlling stocks on thousands of large companies that are ultimately owned by small groups of the same shareholders. Now it's evolving to large sectors owned by fewer and fewer people.
    - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
      That is certainly a contributing factor, which Matt Stoller has documented robustly in his newsletter "Big" [1] [2], as well as the More Perfect Union org [3] [4]. [1] https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=thebignewsletter.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=thebignewsletter.com [3] https://perfectunion.us/ https://perfectunion.us/ [4] https://substack.perfectunion.us/ https://substack.perfectunion.us/
    - stocksinsmocks 9mo ago
      I don’t think self-dealing is new. Although it was eye-opening, when I learned that BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity all own 5-10% of every company and competition between the companies they hold is not meaningful. Everyone just has to have nice steady predictable returns and nobody is allowed to innovate too far ahead of anyone else for fear of devaluing the real bosses’ other assets. I don’t even know what to call the kind of system we have.
      - coliveira 9mo ago
        As I said, BlackRock and their friends were just the beginning. NVdia is trying to own a huge chunk of the AI space using their profits. Other tech companies are using a similar playbook. And of course they're all owned by Wall Street. The competition is highly controlled so the winners are all part of the same club.
  - SoftTalker 9mo ago
    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.
- jordanb 9mo ago
  Tesla's stock is a tulip future at this point.
- magic_man 9mo ago
  I don't think Tesla stock has traded on fundamentals for a while.
  - nxm 9mo ago
    Short it then
    - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
      Can't win against irrational exuberance and fraud that isn't prosecuted in the capital markets ("voting machine vs weighing machine"). Just have to wait for failure of the enterprise, equity wipeout, and recapitalization under better human management (if you're optimizing for a company that actually manufacturers and sells a product vs a shell to pump a stock and enrich the board members who enable him with a lack of corporate governance). The factories and Supercharger network will remain intact under a reorganization. Musk can move money around SpaceX/Tesla/XAI/whatever the next story to investors is to prop up valuations and share prices, but can he win against China's clean tech export machine? Long term, I think not (China is a third of global manufacturing capacity as of this comment, and the world is their TAM). So he'll do the tech bro thing, giving talks, going to demo days, spending his wealth on pet projects, etc, while innovators innovate and point the firehose of these products at the world. Are you going to talk people out of his religion? Unlikely. The faithful will remain so, because that's how the human brain sometimes operates. Ember Energy: China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... (updated monthly) ("In 2024, China produced around 80% of the world’s solar PV modules and battery cells, and 70% of electric vehicles.") US warns China overproducing EVs, batteries, semiconductors for global dominance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909869 - October 2024 China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40954508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40954508 - July 2024 China Already Makes as Many Batteries as the Entire World Wants - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40933773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40933773 - July 2024 (as of this comment, ~50% of light vehicle sales in China are NEVs [battery electric of plug in hybrid] while exporting ~6M units/year, more than total annual US light vehicle sales)
- andsoitis 9mo ago
  > I really don't understand those investors and how they price a struggling company so highly. Struggling, not so much: '24/'25 revenue of just under $100B, with Q3'25 record profitability and deliveries yielding $1.5B net income. Strong liquidity and a current ratio of about 2, boosting short-term financial stability. Solid cash reserves and relatively low debt ratio. High stock price: far exceeds that of traditional auto makers even though Tesla's revenue is significantly lower. High valuation reflects investor expectations of growth and future tech upside. Exuberant? Probably. OTOH, Tesla has delivered better ROI for investors than the other automakers.
  - stingraycharles 9mo ago
    It has delivered a better ROI in the same way a ponzi scheme can deliver higher ROI.
    - andsoitis 9mo ago
      > It has delivered a better ROI in the same way a ponzi scheme can deliver higher ROI. It sounds like you're arguing that high valuation compared to fundamentals means buyers expect gains from future buyers paying more sounds like a Ponzi, but it isn't, it is speculation. The comparison doesn't make sense. Some surface features of speculative markets can look Ponzi-like, but the underlying mechanics are very different. A Ponzi-scheme returns to earlier participants directly from money contributed by later participants, with no real underlying business generating value. In a Ponzi-scheme, there is no real product (or it is irrelevant), the operator controls payouts, and investors are promised steady or guaranteed returns. None of that applies to Tesla stock. Ponzi-schemes hide losses, smooth returns, collapse suddenly. Tesla stock is volatile, has had large drawdowns, and public reflects bad news, margin compression, demand shifts. Volatility is a sign of a market, not a Ponzi.
      - boroboro4 9mo ago
        Mechanics is exactly the same - it's not Tesla revenues driving returns for investors, it's new investors putting their money into the stock at very high price.
- paxys 9mo ago
  There's nothing to understand really. Tesla is a meme stock, and will keep rising as long as Elon and others keep hyping it up.
  - mapontosevenths 9mo ago
    I don't understand why this keeps working. The dude doing the hyping is widely hated. 67% of Americans have said they'll never consider buying a Tesla. 56% cite Musk as either the entire reason or part of the reason. [0] Tesla IS Elon Musk. Without him they're nothing, with him they can't access 2/3rds of the market. Why would anyone invest in that? [0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-thirds-of-americans-now-say-they-wouldnt-drive-a-tesla--and-most-of-them-cite-elon-musk-as-the-reason-why-according-to-a-new-poll-152619516.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-thirds-of-americans-now-say-t...
    - vkou 9mo ago
      Stock valuations are not a democracy of public opinion, they are the product of investors putting their money into the stock. Musk is a shit human, but to an investor, everything he touches turns to gold. Whether his companies make anything useful doesn't matter, what matters is that the stock price in his companies goes up, so people give him more money. This works until it doesn't.
    - iknowstuff 9mo ago
      TSLA investors: * don't believe the 67% will follow through with that after experiencing FSD * don't need 67% of Americans to purchase the car. Robotaxi use is plenty. * look beyond the American market and its pathetic 5% EV share.
      - mapontosevenths 9mo ago
        Personally, I suspect they're very wrong about the first two points, but that's just my opinion. Thanks for explaining the other side of it.
      - dzhiurgis 9mo ago
- himinlomax 9mo ago
  The promise of self driving is what's driving Tesla stock. Two things can happen: The dream is a bust, and Tesla is worthless. Or the dream pans out, and almost all other car companies are worth a lot less. Unless you absolutely want to believe that either self driving is impossible, or Tesla is uniquely unable to achieve it, the valuation is not entirely unwarranted. Put shortly, Tesla is not a car company, it's a bet on self-driving cars.
  - Animats 9mo ago
    A more likely outcome is that all major auto manufacturers offer self driving. Ford and Mercedes already have Level 3 systems. Toyota is working with Waymo. Several Chinese automakers have self driving, at various levels of quality. It's going to become a routine feature of cars. Tesla isn't even the leader.
  - debo_ 9mo ago
    Well, they don't have a self-driving car but they do have a self-driving share price!
  - Scubabear68 9mo ago
    This omits the fact that Musk has slashed costs in critical areas of Tesla cars, notably in relying only on visual sensors. They abandoned the hardware most promising to help enable self-driving.
  - neogodless 9mo ago
    There's a simple third option you omitted: Tesla is not the only company to achieve self-driving, and all companies that achieve it share the market with them. (Or the fourth option, it will take decades for self-driving to take even a significant market of "driving" as humans continue to want to own and drive cars rather than short-term rentals.)
  - kilna 9mo ago
    Framing it as unwarranted to not think "Tesla is uniquely unable to achieve it"...? Seriously? The real question is if Tesla is uniquely ABLE to achieve it, above others in the market... including new startups or tech/auto-maker partnerships which may yet form. Tesla has some supply chain innovation, but none of what they do can't be replicated... and Musk's slavish commitment to video as opposed to LIDAR is hobbling them.
- malshe 9mo ago
  If you want to understand how Tesla bulls pump the stock, check out any of the numerous videos of Dan Ives you will find on YouTube. He is regularly invited on CNBC and other financial new media as well as on financial blogs/vlogs. Here is one recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecLsZ4bkW6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecLsZ4bkW6Q
  - moogly 9mo ago
    Wow, that is the least confidence-inspiring person I've ever listened to (and perhaps laid eyes upon).
    - sidibe 9mo ago
      I think somehow the goofiness and untrustworthiness of the pumpers is a way to select their audience, just like how spammers intentionally misspell to not waste their time on people with discernment
- 1970-01-01 9mo ago
  Because you're getting a biased storyline both here and over there. The 4680 supply chain isn't a requirement for anything to succeed at Tesla. The product still sells, just with lower profit per unit. At best, it marks the removal of the current Cybertruck battery pack chemistry. Everything else about the future of Tesla is (as always) clickbait speculation.
- vinyl7 9mo ago
  Stock market is all based on vibes at this point. Giant gambling system
  - y0eswddl 9mo ago
    Has been for much of the late-and post-ZIRP period. Our so-called "gdp" is mostly rent and legal ponzi schemes
- bgwalter 9mo ago
  Tesla has the government and a vast propaganda apparatus behind it: https://fortune.com/2025/03/20/howard-lutnick-pumps-tesla-stock/ https://fortune.com/2025/03/20/howard-lutnick-pumps-tesla-st... “If you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters. In this economy we have a billionaire clan selling hot air and backing each other up. The main "achievements" of this administration are in pumping Bitcoin, "AI", cannabis sales and and online gambling.
- y0eswddl 9mo ago
  have because despite the story that most people try to tell about the market and the economy... in the late- and post-ZIRP era, it's been mostly based on Hype, Feelings, and Vibes. It's why the entire S&P 500 teeters on the back of 7 companies without any presently viable paths to profitability that would justify the current valuations. It's why repeatedly lying for a decade+ made Elon so rich even though the business output and fundamentals never really matched the valuation. Still doesn't - this valuation is mostly vestigial beliefs that AI would eliminate an entire workforce ("history often rhymes") of drivers and replace car ownership with subscription. The majority of the performance in the market has little to do with actual material value being produced and everything to do with how much rent finance bros think they can extract from the stock.
- chrsw 9mo ago
  I see a lot of Teslas on the road. But I spend a lot of time in Massachusetts and some in California.
- Tycho 9mo ago
  Think of Tesla as a well-funded pharmaceutical company that has invented a cure for a widespread ailment (call it “driving”) and now is waiting on regulatory approval.
- Veedrac 9mo ago
  The stock market learns from experience, because it's made of people who learn from experience. Imagine an investor's experience with TSLA. From the beginning, they're flooded with news reports about 'fundamentals' this, 'fundamentals' that, about how Tesla would imminently collapse, how it's a scam, yada yada. Said investors _constantly_ see themselves being right and those skeptics wrong. Tesla is in fact disrupting an industry. They really are just continuing to scale. Marginal profitability keeps going up. Their cars keep getting better. FSD keeps getting better. The competition that people kept pointing at kept failing to materialize. None of this seems to change the skeptics' byline. Tesla is actually in a materially worse position than it was a few years ago, by many metrics, but the stock price isn't set by 'fundamentals', it's set by the people setting demand for the stock. With TSLA, this is disproportionately going to be people who have learned to and gotten rich from ignoring the people loudly telling them why investing in Tesla is a bad idea. A market will correct eventually, but corrections either require people to change their minds or run out of capital. Neither has happened yet, so the market can't correct.
- rich_sasha 9mo ago
  My take is there are not really any reasonable Tesla investors left. Due to a steady supply of Real Believers, anyone with a short bet got burnt time after time. So these people are no longer shorting. Sane long-only people, likewise have been out for a long time. You're left with a clique of people who won't sell regardless, and when Elon promises to make ice cream with robotaxies, they'll buy a bit more stock. When only irrational people trade something, the price and market for it are irrational too.
- throw-12-16 9mo ago
  Teslas CEO bought the presidency of the USA.
doctorpangloss 9mo ago
what would it look like to directly sell EV batteries to consumers? what would have to happen? this sort of happened. the people who sold these battery materials for the 4680 thought they were making a B2B sale, and they still wound up making a B2C sale - that ended in disaster - in disguise.
- ajross 9mo ago
  > 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/dp/B0FNMWF8D9 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 meta-spin the failure as "supply chain collapse", etc... Obviously, no, you can't just buy a bunch of 21700 cells and stuff them in the car yourself, the balancing and calibration needs to happen in an integrated way and that repair (digging into a 400V DC battery!) is just way too dangerous for amateurs. But the batteries themselves are mature technology and kinda boring.
  - alright2565 9mo ago
    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.
    - tclancy 9mo ago
      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.
jqpabc123 9mo ago
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-tesla-robotaxi-will-cover-half-us-population-end-year/ https://electrek.co/2025/07/23/elon-musk-with-straight-face-...
- coliveira 9mo ago
  Just wait another 6 months /s
  - abirch 9mo ago
    Tesla isn't a car company it's a robotics company (2025) Tesla isn't a robotics company it's a meme company (2027)
    - TheOtherHobbes 9mo ago
      Tesla isn't a company (2029)
      - Maken 9mo ago
        Tesla is acquired by xAI (2026)
    - jbm 9mo ago
      The one that intrigued me more was circa the 2017 era when Tesla was supposedly an energy company. That might have justified their valuation at the time, but it turned out to be dishonest spin. Yet again, there are no adults and the shallow fabric of society fails to conceal the greed boner under the sheets.
      - rswail 9mo ago
        That's when he was bailing out the solar roof company owned by his cousins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity Being in Australia, we have the benefit of getting US, EU, CN, and other vehicle brands, as well as solar and battery suppliers. Tesla sells a lot of home batteries, but there are numerous other brands. Tesla's cars are old now, the difference is the Hyundai, Kia, Geely, ZeekR, BYD, Polestar, Mini, Lexus, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes and other brands are cars that happen to be powered by batteries, not some magic carpet of future ideas.
Neil44 9mo ago
Reuters earlier this year - "The development of the 4680 battery has been facing troubles, with the company losing 70% to 80% of the cathodes in test production compared with conventional battery makers, which lose fewer than 2% of their components to manufacturing defects, the report said." The company L&F referenced in this article were supplying said cathode material. ref https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-plans-four-new-batteries-2026-including-robotaxi-information-reports-2024-10-03/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-plans-four-new-batt...
jack_riminton 9mo ago
Electrek’s ‘reporting’ has proven so one-sided that I take all their stories with a bucket of salt. Even if the truck has been a flop I doubt their whole battery program has been. Perhaps they’re rejigging suppliers and pausing whilst they get ready to ramp up cyber cab production lines
- malfist 9mo ago
  And what evidence do you base those assumptions on? According to the journalists at electrek despite Tesla having capacity to manufacture 250k cybertrucks per year, they're only selling 20-25k per year
  - mxschumacher 9mo ago
    and SpaceX has been a major buyer of Cybertrucks
  - SonOfKyuss 9mo ago
    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
    - TheAlchemist 9mo ago
      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.
      - detritus 9mo ago
        Thanks for this - I've paid much less attention to Tesla over recent years, but my memory of Electrek was that it was a distinctly-pro Tesla outlet, but this was a few years back now.
Veserv 9mo ago
A headline that actually undersells the article. The 2,900,000,000 $ deal to 7,400 $ is not just a 99% reduction, it is actually over a 99.999% reduction. I guess that is one way to get the "march of nines" they keep promising.
- wayeq 9mo ago
  we humans aren't really good after the first couple 9's
- amluto 9mo ago
  At some point the question isn’t “how many nines” but “why is the contract worth $7400 and not $0”.
  - taurath 9mo ago
    It was on some very nice letterhead and quite tastefully bound in a bespoke leather case!
  - Hamuko 9mo ago
    Maybe they can still invoice Tesla for some office stationary or something.
thebruce87m 9mo ago
> In a regulatory filing today, L&F revealed that the contract’s value has been written down to just $7,386. > No, that is not a typo. $2.9 billion to roughly $7,400. Ooft. That’s one hell of a write down. Imagine the person that had to do the calculation and report it back.
- AnotherGoodName 9mo ago
  $7,386 seems to be roughly one Cybertruck batteries worth (the only vehicle that uses that battery). As in they literally expect to build one more Cybertruck battery and that's it. I'm guessing the excess stock in the Tesla factories covers spares for a few years already. I wonder when the cancellation will be announced by Tesla? It's all but leaked at this point.
  - gota 9mo ago
    Maybe they did this to keep the contract with a symbolic value; or to avoid the headlines that Tesla 'cancelled' the contract? A '99% write down' is such an uncommon term that many people might not register it.
    - consp 9mo ago
      > Maybe they did this to keep the contract with a symbolic value; Tax reasons? Keep it on the book and write the loss off against other profit over coming years? No clue how it would work in practice but it sounds taxy.
    - em-bee 9mo ago
      posting it on HN had the opposite effect for me. if the headline was "tesla cancelled contract to buy batteries" i would not have cared. the things that still confuses me is that this is caused by tesla no longer needing these batteries, but the headline to me reads like it is caused by the partner and tesla is somehow negatively affected by that.
neuroelectron 9mo ago
I actually did want a lighter, 2 Wheel Drive Cybertruck (for $40,000). The "Long Range" trim was close. But it was actually $70k not the $60k they were saying. Get rid of the touchscreen and the four-wheel-drive steering and the electrical flush door handles, the hatch thing in the back, smaller wheels, any other electronic features like 120v inverters, etc. solid rear axel would be nice but that would be a major redesign.
- homerowilson 9mo ago
  Swap "solid rear axle" with "De Dion axle" and your description fits the Slate truck pretty well.
- mtoner23 9mo ago
  Slate truck or telo trucks could be the move
- FuriouslyAdrift 9mo ago
  You should look at the Slate... https://www.slate.auto/en https://www.slate.auto/en
  - neuroelectron 9mo ago
    Not falling for that again, I'll consider it when it actually exists
    - FuriouslyAdrift 9mo ago
      Should be shipping next year
manoDev 9mo ago
The future of electrification is at risk because the market chose to bet on TSLA. Many companies backpedaled on EV and the POTUS is making a major push towards oil (including invading Venezuela). The future looks grim.
- tartuffe78 9mo ago
  The future looks Chinese.
  - dyauspitr 9mo ago
    And electric
  - mindslight 9mo ago
    Trump is going to be lauded in the history books for sure. The Chinese history books, that is. Before this massive self-own, we at least had a chance.
  - misiti3780 9mo ago
    China's future looks very grim. China has all sorts of demographic and debt problems no one is talking about: https://open.substack.com/pub/crosscurrents28/p/chinas-broken-balance-sheet-why-i?r=7njhm&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay https://open.substack.com/pub/crosscurrents28/p/chinas-broke...
- rayiner 9mo ago
  The market didn’t choose to bet on Tesla. It was the only game in town for years.
- gtirloni 9mo ago
  For the US and the US only.
- coliveira 9mo ago
  They essentially gave away the market to Chinese companies, while at the same time complaining that China is "stealing" something.
everfrustrated 9mo ago
Seems odd to have a supply contract without a penalty clause.
netdur 9mo ago
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
- malshe 9mo ago
  Americans? Elon Musk is one person. He might be the richest person in the world but he doesn't represent us.
- anderber 9mo ago
  I think you're underselling what Trump and Musk has done to the stability of Democracy in the US. Aside from all that, there are other American car manufacturers with great EVs: Mustang Mach-E, Chevy Equinox/Bolt/Blazer, etc. Not saying that BYD isn't better, but comparing to Tesla, there is plenty of US competition.
  - csa 9mo ago
    > Aside from all that, there are other American car manufacturers with great EVs: Mustang Mach-E, Chevy Equinox/Bolt/Blazer, etc. Teslas aren’t perfect, and they are definitely starting to get a bit dated, but the list you made has precisely zero “great EVs” imho.
    - anderber 9mo ago
      All opinions I suppose, huh?
    - rootusrootus 9mo ago
      They are as good as any Tesla, however, and in some areas better. Source: I own a Tesla Model 3 (my second) and I have owned a Bolt in the past, and currently own a Lightning. Aside from towing range, I prefer the Lightning the majority of the time. Tesla does some things better, while Ford excels in other ways. Both definitely have glaring faults.
      - 9mo ago
mocmoc 9mo ago
[flagged]
- mtoner23 9mo ago
  Wouldn't be if we could buy byd cars in the US
- Kelteseth 9mo ago
  I will never go back to a ICE car after 30k km of driving an EV
- gwbas1c 9mo ago
  The technology is fine, it's the leadership. Plenty of other countries are rolling out EVs fine, we (the US) just can't seem to build out the charging infrastructure or standardize on a charging port. (And don't forget that Laserdisk was quite successful for what it tried to do, and that when you buy physical videos today, they're in optical disk format.)
  - reissbaker 9mo ago
    The U.S. already standardized on a charging port: Tesla's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standa...
    - gwbas1c 9mo ago
      There is no legal mandate for NACS. Cars are still sold with J1772/CCS ports, there are still CCS chargers being deployed, there are still J1772 home chargers being sold, almost every level 2 charger is J1772, and my NACS EV came with two dongles. (FWIW, the new Leaf has a NACS port that's only used for level 3 charging, and separate J1772 port for level 1/2 charging.) If there was a legal mandate for a changeover, it would be a very different story. --- We pretty much need to force NACS: Force all public chargers (level 2 and 3) to be NACS, force all cars sold to be NACS, and make it super-easy for people with older cars to get dongles.
yalogin 9mo ago
So this battery pipeline can only be used for the cybertruck? Cannot be adapted to be used with the other vehicles? That seems odd.
- lysace 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - nutjob2 9mo ago
    Maybe your brain could tell us where the batteries are being used and who is producing them. You know, evidence, instead of just something that resides in your brain.
    - lysace 9mo ago
      > can only be used for the cybertruck vs > where the batteries are being used It's just a different battery cell size with less overhead. 46 by 80 mm instead of e.g. 21 by 70 mm.
      - nutjob2 9mo ago
        I get it, but if the supplier shutting it down suggests that its not being used anywhere else. So besides speculation, where is the evidence. In particular I'm wondering about production within Tesla, another supplier, anything that suggests there is a model adopting them.
- tensor 9mo ago
  The thing you made up sure seems odd yes! The facts are that it is not currently used in any other vehicle and we can assume by the fact that the contract was written down by 99% that there is no plan to do so in the near term, otherwise they'd actually, you know, need the batteries. But don't let facts get in the way of some good bullshit!
jeffbee 9mo ago
The big lie that you've all been sold is that Tesla has any kind of battery technology at all. Outside of repackaging Panasonic (in America) and other batteries (abroad), Tesla has dabbled in a few experiments and they all failed.
fencepost 9mo ago
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 [more] big deal." 2023 article confirming NMC chemistry: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/ad14d0 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/ad14d0 5/2025 article discussing change to LFP: https://roboticsbiz.com/teslas-4680-lfp-battery-explained-cheaper-safer-and-made-in-the-usa/ https://roboticsbiz.com/teslas-4680-lfp-battery-explained-ch... 3/2025 article comparing BYD's LFP and Tesla's NMC/NCM: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666386425000529 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266638642...
- iknowstuff 9mo ago
  This makes sense but does it make sense to manufacture LFPs as 4680 cylinders instead of rectangular blocks/blades, given https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Blade_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Blade_battery ?
  - ggreer 9mo ago
    Which cell technology to use depends on the application. Tesla actually uses BYD blade batteries in some of their vehicles sold in Europe. The main issue with prismatic cells is that to be safe, they must be made with LFP chemistry, which hurts energy density. LFP is also worse at charging/discharging when cold, though battery management software mostly solves that. Cylindrical cells make sense for higher performance NMC and NCA chemistries, as they can be cooled more easily (coolant lines can run in the voids between cylindrical cells), and any single cell failure is less likely to cascade to other cells. Batteries with cylindrical cells were easier to repair, but nowadays cells are welded together instead of bolted, so that's no longer an advantage.
    - vel0city 9mo ago
      > The main issue with prismatic cells is that to be safe, they must be made with LFP chemistry, which hurts energy density This is obviously untrue. Tons of other chemistries have used prismatic cells with good safety as well. You think Macbooks and iPhones use LFP or cylinder cells? > Batteries with cylindrical cells were easier to repair, It can be just as easy to repair a prismatic battery as a cylinder battery. It all comes down to the layout of the battery. And as you mentioned, how the battery is constructed, if the battery is structural, etc.
maxdo 9mo ago
If you see electrek news , these are just plain sour haters. Cyberteack is a flop. This battery has a parallel track and is used elsewhere so conclusions are just basesless .
- manmal 9mo ago
  Isn’t this design DOA though, with LFP and upcoming solid state batteries?
- nutjob2 9mo ago
  Where else are the batteries used?
  - Synaesthesia 9mo ago
    It says in the article other manufacturers are using 4680 tech in their cars, BMW, Rivian ...
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
submeta 9mo ago
Musk increasingly feels like a charlatan selling snake oil. He is great at hype and storytelling, not so great at execution. Big promises, missed timelines, excuses reframed as genius. He has been promising fully autonomous Teslas since at least 2015 and “level 5” self-driving within a couple of years, yet cars still require human oversight and true autonomy remains elusive. He said Tesla robotaxis would be on the road by 2020 and then “next year” repeatedly, which never happened. He promised an affordable $35,000 Model 3 and a cheap family EV, but those never materialized as advertised. He unveiled the Cybertruck with specific features and price points that did not pan out, and several promised add-ons never appeared. He set repeated production deadlines for the Tesla Roadster that kept slipping for years. And his Mars colonization timelines are still nowhere near realistic. The same cycle keeps repeating, with fans focusing on a few wins while ignoring a long list of missed commitments. At some point it stops being bold vision and starts looking like a confidence game.
messyfork 9mo ago
Turns out making a box is even easier than a larger tootsie roll.
Moto7451 9mo ago
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.
- bgarbiak 9mo ago
  I guess it depends on who you’d ask. BMW made a switch from prismatic cells to cylindrical design only recently, and it looks like the biggest gain was in costs and weight efficiency. The range/capacity ratio didn’t improve that much. Although, to be fair, none of these parameters depend on battery alone.
seltzered_ 9mo ago
Worth noting this Branden Flasch video from a year ago talking about how the charging speed on the 4680 pack tesla Model Y was uncompetitively slow and arguably shouldn't have been sold: https://youtu.be/eQeziVkRwSA https://youtu.be/eQeziVkRwSA
beepbooptheory 9mo ago
A little tangential, but seeing now the name of the steering-wheel-less cabs, why'd they name it Cyber{truck,cab} anyway? Doesn't it imply we use them to drive through the internet?
- tokai 9mo ago
  Its even better with the ancient Greek definition of cyber. Then it becomes a steer-truck/cab, literally implying the opposite.
nerdo 9mo ago
What is TSLA's valuation based on anymore? Maybe next week it'll be the moon colony they’ll have up and running in 2028.
mvdtnz 9mo ago
This 2 hour old entry with 242 comments and 231 points has dropped off the front page. Interesting.
simianparrot 9mo ago
[dead]
nate 9mo ago
I know there’s a lot of Tesla/Elon hate here. I’m not denying any of it. I’m just sharing a genuinely strange experience I wasn’t expecting. We needed a car again. Sold ours a year ago and got by with Uber, rentals, taxis. Life changed a bit and we needed something more predictable. I was planning to buy something used and boring and didn’t really care what. My wife asked, “What about an EV?” We can’t charge in our rental garage, but there’s a Tesla Supercharger literally across the street. Took a Tesla test drive mostly out of curiosity. And… I drove maybe 1% of that drive. The rest was on full self driving (FSD). Fast forward, I now own a Tesla, and about 99% of my driving is on FSD. Important context: when we picked it up, it was still on v13. It immediately made an illegal turn and scared some pedestrians in a crosswalk. So yes, I get the concern and skepticism. I had it too. Then v14.2 landed. Whatever they changed in that release feels real. It’s not just incremental. It feels like a different system. Elon says “we finally cracked it” (and probably says that all the time), so take that with a grain of salt, but with my very small sample size… it kind of looks like they might have. Two moments that really stuck with me: While self-driving, the car clearly anticipated a bus making a massive wide turn into our lane and hung way back until the maneuver was complete. It saw that developing long before I did. At ~70 mph, I was mid lane-change with my blinker on when a driver towing a large trailer decided to drift into the same lane without checking their blind spot. The Tesla instantly aborted the lane change and smoothly moved back, avoiding what would’ve been a nasty accident. No panic, no hard braking, no drama. I know this probably sounds like shilling. I’m not interested in the politics and don’t want to defend any of that. But it genuinely feels like stepping into the future, and honestly a much safer way to drive. I want Rivian, Waymo, whoever to nail this too. I hope they do. But right now, Tesla seems to actually have something that crossed a line from “demo” to “wow, this is real.” I didn’t expect to come away thinking that. But here we are.
- deleted 9mo ago
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- ffffffu 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - 9mo ago
elif 9mo ago
There's a lot of speculation here. The actual facts of this reporting could just as likely be explained by vertical integration, very typical of Tesla, or of a supplier shift due to absurdly high tariffs.
wilg 9mo ago
Unfortunately nobody else makes any good electric cars at this time, and certainly none that have anything approaching FSD. But you can't buy one due to Elon's treachery. It's extremely frustrating.
KnuthIsGod 9mo ago
"In a regulatory filing today, L&F revealed that the contract’s value has been written down to just $7,386. No, that is not a typo. $2.9 billion to roughly $7,400." https://electrek.co/2025/12/29/tesla-4680-battery-supply-chain-collapses-partner-writes-down-dea/ https://electrek.co/2025/12/29/tesla-4680-battery-supply-cha...
omarforgotpwd 9mo ago
Tesla is actually starting to make cathodes in house via a dry process, which is why they are no longer buying cathode material from this supplier. Typical sloppy reporting from Electrek.
- RataNova 9mo ago
  Vertical integration only makes sense if you're actually ramping output
  - rconti 9mo ago
    I think the missing information here is whether there are plans to put the 4680 in vehicles that sell well.
- mysecretaccount 9mo ago
  > Tesla is actually starting to make cathodes in house via a dry process, which is why they are no longer buying cathode material from this supplier. The latter part of this is speculative. Tesla may have begun shipping dry cathodes but it isn't clear that they're capable of matching the former third-party volume. Tesla would absolutely need the additional 4680 volume if Cybertruck sales were meeting their original projections (as opposed to now when they are ~an order of magnitude lower).
  - DustinBrett 9mo ago
    The entire article is speculative.
    - mysecretaccount 9mo ago
      The poster to which I responded and the article are each speculating on the "why" for this contract. That said, we do not need to speculate about Cybertruck sales - Business Insider reported that Tesla sold only 5,400 of them in 2025Q3. We know from this that they do not need the same level of third-party 4680 capacity, and (call it speculative if you so desire) this is the most parsimonious explanation for the L&F write down.
ggm 9mo ago
How easily can stocks be redirected to eg energy supply logistics and make battery stacks? How easily can the inputs be redirected by the source to more viable longterm contract sells? How strongly will this push back on mining and minerals in related fields? E.g. palladium prices have collapsed, could this kind of thing move mining product pricing?
syspec 9mo ago
Don't worry, the 99% reduction in battery materials is just a strategic pivot to an 'asset-light' approach. The 4680 supply chain isn't collapsing, it’s just being 'optimized' for a future where cars apparently don't need batteries—just FSD subscriptions and robotaxis that run on optimism.
timzaman 9mo ago
[flagged]
throw-12-16 9mo ago
I ride in budget BYD’s regularly in Asia. Tesla is absolutely fucked.
ryukoposting 9mo ago
Is anybody surprised by the cratering demand for the Cybertruck (directly attributable to 4680 troubles)? Tesla sold the idea of a crazy space truck to a bunch of techie dorks, who then pulled out of the deal when faced with the reality of owning a vehicle that they have to clean with Barkeeper's Friend. This was the obvious result.
- IceHegel 9mo ago
  I would buy a Cybertruck tomorrow if it had a gas engine. I would buy a $10,000 or $15,000 gas generator add-on if it enabled unlimited range (provided I have gasoline). There are just too many places, even in California, where I have to limit my trip because of electric range. I'm surprised no one has done the generator.
  - marticode 9mo ago
    It's ugly, poorly built, expensive and not very good as a truck. A gas engine will not fix all these flaws.
    - misiti3780 9mo ago
      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 ?
      - PTOB 9mo ago
        1958 Chevy Corvette. Looks way more futuristic.
        misiti3780 9mo ago
        maybe at the time, not anymore. that car is ugly.
        9mo ago
sidcool 9mo ago
The picture of Tesla across internet is so polarizing. X and YouTube is full of Tesla is the future vibe. Electrek and HN is calling it a complete scam. I am sure it's in the middle, but I can't find a balanced opinion anywhere. But I have seen Electrek being too negative about Tesla always. And never reporting anything positive as such.
- fedeb95 9mo ago
  research what's in the product if you're interested in buying, and then take your risk as a consumer as with any new product one buys. Or research into the company if you want to buy shares.
- jfoster 9mo ago
  In many parts of the world, you can walk into a Tesla store and tell them you're not interested in purchasing but would like to try it anyway. More likely than not, they will give you a free test drive. You'll be able to decide for yourself whether it's the future or a scam.
- anthonybsd 9mo ago
  Elektrek was one of the biggest Tesla cheerleaders until 2023 or so. Founder promoting neonazi and fascist ideas kinda made them sour on the brand, can you blame them?
  - sidibe 9mo ago
    I think that's probably the main reason but also Fred Lambert "earned" a free roadster through referrals gassing up Elon and Tesla and as always with Elons promises it has not materialized.
    - nebula8804 9mo ago
      He had numerous problems with his early edition Model 3 in the Canadian winter and when complaining about it got into a spat with Musk over it on Twitter. Afterwards all 'access' to Tesla was forever lost I guess. The roadster fiasco came later I think. Roadsters are reserved for friends of Elon only regardless of what referrals they got. THink there is some fine print to disqualify people after the fact. Rich Rebuilds lost his roadster for much more benign things. (Reverse engineering Tesla stuff)
spullara 9mo ago
I think the amount of vitriol in this thread directed at one of the most successful tech entrepreneurs of all time is sad. He may be too optimistic in his predictions but at least he has goals worth achieving and doesn't stop just because it doesn't work the first time.
- arghandugh 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - reissbaker 9mo ago
    One of the greatest mass murderers in history...? I uh, am morbidly curious to hear your thought process here.
    - arghandugh 9mo ago
      If you are unfamiliar with the shuttering of USAID this year, you “uh” be in an information bubble that is not serving you. Search terms that will help you on your journey include “DOGE”, “Kenya”, and “cholera”.
      - reissbaker 9mo ago
        ...Curiosity satisfied, I suppose. While I disagree with some of the USAID cuts, I don't think that "not giving charity" is the same thing as "mass murder."
        arghandugh 9mo ago
        Well, that’s between you and your worth as a human being I suppose. I do thank you for doing the legwork.
  - IshKebab 9mo ago
    [flagged]
epolanski 9mo ago
Which bmw models use that battery? In any case I'm more and more convinced that Tesla does not hold any significant advantage anymore over legacy automakers in EV space like Volkswagen group, which has 20+ electric models.
MagicMoonlight 9mo ago
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.
- mft_ 9mo ago
  I' m not defending Tesla for a moment, but I disagree with your take... 1) Wasn't it always inevitable that, once tha large established car manufacturers really started to knuckle down to creating EVs, that Tesla's lead and 'moat' would mostly vanish? They still have some of the most efficient EVs available, and their UI/UX is still one of the best, but of course they'll face compeition, and of course their competitors will try to differentiate in all directions, and especially those that are superficially attractive (and less expensive to deliver) like interior design. 2) Back in his earlier, pre-crazy days, Musk suggested (something along the lines of) that Tesla's goal wasn't to be a huge successful car company, so much as to prove that EVs were viable as everyday cars, and drive a revolution in the car industry. By this measure, they've mostly succeeded. --- Big picture, totally agree that Tesla seems to have lost its way over the past few years, which unsurprisingly correlates (to an outside observer) with Musk's apparent changes in judgement and behaviour, with its consequent impact on Tesla's image and desirability amongst consumers. The Cybertruck turns out to have been a huge misstep, and not having delivered a 'model 2' - i.e. a small mid-sized option - (maybe instead?) is a huge miss.
  - trollbridge 9mo ago
    Advantage for Tesla is that the rest of the auto industry has lost their way, too. For example, the infotainment in a brand new, expensive vehicle like a new GM is atrociously bad, unreliable, and slow/clunky to use.
    - nebula8804 9mo ago
      Have you used it? The Equinox EV/LYRIQ has a large OLED screen spanning a lot of the dash and the Android based menu is pretty decent.
RataNova 9mo ago
Yet the 4680 was supposed to be a platform shift, not a single-model experiment
constantcrying 9mo ago
In other news: https://www.electrive.com/2025/12/17/powerco-starts-unified-cell-production-in-salzgitter/ https://www.electrive.com/2025/12/17/powerco-starts-unified-... It is totally absurd how far Tesla has fallen behind legacy auto makers, who are now starting up their own battery production and are very close to actually releasing a 25.000 Euro car in Europe.
spprashant 9mo ago
I am no big fan of Tesla, but Electrek has a clear bias in their reporting.
cramcgrab 9mo ago
Gotta love Electrek and Fred Lambert, he’s managed to lose a crap-ton of money on Tesla stock. What a total loser. I always read his stuff and think the opposite, that’s the safe bet.
danity 9mo ago
Take anything on electrek.co with a grain of salt, it is a wildly anti-Tesla, pro-China website.
- tutus 9mo ago
  Is there something you disagree with in the article or you just don’t like the author?
  - CursedSilicon 9mo ago
    Whenever I see people decry it as "anti Tesla" or "anti Elon" I just wonder "what have they done they can be covered positively?" While I'm an out and proud "Tesla hater" and freely admit my own bias. The defenders never actually seem to have any "look here's something good that [site] overlooked!" It's just whining about the site being anti-Tesla
    - xboxnolifes 9mo ago
      Its not about complementing the bad with some good. Its about how much the bad is exxagerated.
      - CursedSilicon 9mo ago
        Is it 'exaggeration' when it's all that's there to report on? Would it be less 'exaggeration' if the site only talked about Tesla "half" the time? (that is to say, just ignored Tesla rather than reported on issues)
- Spunkie 9mo ago
  I don't have any comments on their supposed slant, but I do know electrek.co articles often contain mistakes or inaccuracies. When I comment on the articles or email their authors/editors about the inaccuracies they never respond, nor fix the article. So yeah... Take anything on electrek.co with a grain of salt.
cwp 9mo ago
This article is drivel. If a supplier writes down the value of a contract with Tesla, they're saying Tesla is buying fewer batteries, or will in the near future. That is, there is a lack of demand for the batteries. If you're determined to take this as bad news for Tesla, rather than bad news for L&F, you could maybe speculate about lack of demand for Cybertrucks, but spinning it as "supply chain collapse" is just silly.
phtrivier 9mo ago
> Despite a production capacity of 250,000 units per year at Giga Texas, the Cybertruck is currently selling at a run rate of roughly 20,000 to 25,000 units annually. How can such an overcapacity be possible ? Is that a massive failure of market analysis ? On the other hand, is the factory building the cybertruck easy to modify to build other, most successful models ? I hear there is demand for billions of autonomous robotaxis.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- danans 9mo ago
  > How can such an overcapacity be possible ? Is that a massive failure of market analysis ? Partially. Turns out that the cost, size, impracticality, and look turn off most people who would buy an EV. But then there is also the active brand sabotage by the CEO, whose state of mind the Cybertruck seems to originate from and embody.
holtkam2 9mo ago
I’ll buy a cybertruck if and only if the board replaces Elon. I’m serious

672 points by coloneltcb 9mo ago

Tesla stock dipped a little today it seems but it's still up 8 percent over the month. I really don't understand those investors and how they price a struggling company so highly.

toomuchtodo 9mo ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405984 - December 2025 Last week: Elon Musk's SpaceX bought tens of millions worth of Cybertrucks Tesla can't sell - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46317462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46317462 - December 2025 (6 comments) Elon Musk's SpaceX and XAI Are Buying Tesla's Unsold Cybertrucks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45572152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45572152 - October 2025 (8 comments) Tesla's European Sales Plunge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46391352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46391352 - December 2025 (3 comments) Tesla US sales drop to nearly 4-year low in November - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46248803 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46248803 - December 2025 (60 comments) Tesla looks to reset strategy amid sluggish India sales - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46084554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46084554 - November 2025 (2 comments) Tesla's European sales tumble nearly 50% in October - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46063634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46063634 - November 2025 (57 comments) Tesla sees worst sales performance in China in years - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45881302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45881302 - November 2025 (1 comment) BYD Pulls Ahead of Tesla in UK, Closes Sales Gap in Germany - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45859618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45859618 - November 2025 (35 comments) Tesla's German car sales more than halve in October as wider EV sales jump - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45827314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45827314 - November 2025 (135 comments) [Flagged] Tesla sales in Germany have cratered from last year, data shows - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826384 - November 2025 (28 comments) Study: The Musk Partisan Effect on Tesla Sales - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825382 - November 2025 (2 comments) ("Without the Musk partisan effect, Tesla sales between October 2022 and April 2025 would have been 67-83% higher, equivalent to 1-1.26 million more vehicles. Musk’s partisan activities also increased the sales of other automakers' electric and hybrid vehicles 17-22% because of substitution, and undermined California’s progress in meeting its zero-emissions vehicle target.") Tesla Cybertruck sales are flatlining - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45573985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45573985 - October 2025 (17 comments) Tesla Pivots to Robots as Investors Question Sales and Soaring Valuation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228566 - September 2025 (3 comments)
- coliveira 9mo ago
  The "new economy" is full of self-dealing. That's the result of loose (or non-existing) regulations on monopolies. It all starts with Wall Street controlling stocks on thousands of large companies that are ultimately owned by small groups of the same shareholders. Now it's evolving to large sectors owned by fewer and fewer people.
  - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
    That is certainly a contributing factor, which Matt Stoller has documented robustly in his newsletter "Big" [1] [2], as well as the More Perfect Union org [3] [4]. [1] https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=thebignewsletter.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=thebignewsletter.com [3] https://perfectunion.us/ https://perfectunion.us/ [4] https://substack.perfectunion.us/ https://substack.perfectunion.us/
  - stocksinsmocks 9mo ago
    I don’t think self-dealing is new. Although it was eye-opening, when I learned that BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity all own 5-10% of every company and competition between the companies they hold is not meaningful. Everyone just has to have nice steady predictable returns and nobody is allowed to innovate too far ahead of anyone else for fear of devaluing the real bosses’ other assets. I don’t even know what to call the kind of system we have.
    - coliveira 9mo ago
      As I said, BlackRock and their friends were just the beginning. NVdia is trying to own a huge chunk of the AI space using their profits. Other tech companies are using a similar playbook. And of course they're all owned by Wall Street. The competition is highly controlled so the winners are all part of the same club.
- SoftTalker 9mo ago
  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.
jordanb 9mo ago
Tesla's stock is a tulip future at this point.
magic_man 9mo ago
I don't think Tesla stock has traded on fundamentals for a while.
- nxm 9mo ago
  Short it then
  - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
    Can't win against irrational exuberance and fraud that isn't prosecuted in the capital markets ("voting machine vs weighing machine"). Just have to wait for failure of the enterprise, equity wipeout, and recapitalization under better human management (if you're optimizing for a company that actually manufacturers and sells a product vs a shell to pump a stock and enrich the board members who enable him with a lack of corporate governance). The factories and Supercharger network will remain intact under a reorganization. Musk can move money around SpaceX/Tesla/XAI/whatever the next story to investors is to prop up valuations and share prices, but can he win against China's clean tech export machine? Long term, I think not (China is a third of global manufacturing capacity as of this comment, and the world is their TAM). So he'll do the tech bro thing, giving talks, going to demo days, spending his wealth on pet projects, etc, while innovators innovate and point the firehose of these products at the world. Are you going to talk people out of his religion? Unlikely. The faithful will remain so, because that's how the human brain sometimes operates. Ember Energy: China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... (updated monthly) ("In 2024, China produced around 80% of the world’s solar PV modules and battery cells, and 70% of electric vehicles.") US warns China overproducing EVs, batteries, semiconductors for global dominance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909869 - October 2024 China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40954508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40954508 - July 2024 China Already Makes as Many Batteries as the Entire World Wants - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40933773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40933773 - July 2024 (as of this comment, ~50% of light vehicle sales in China are NEVs [battery electric of plug in hybrid] while exporting ~6M units/year, more than total annual US light vehicle sales)
andsoitis 9mo ago
> I really don't understand those investors and how they price a struggling company so highly. Struggling, not so much: '24/'25 revenue of just under $100B, with Q3'25 record profitability and deliveries yielding $1.5B net income. Strong liquidity and a current ratio of about 2, boosting short-term financial stability. Solid cash reserves and relatively low debt ratio. High stock price: far exceeds that of traditional auto makers even though Tesla's revenue is significantly lower. High valuation reflects investor expectations of growth and future tech upside. Exuberant? Probably. OTOH, Tesla has delivered better ROI for investors than the other automakers.
- stingraycharles 9mo ago
  It has delivered a better ROI in the same way a ponzi scheme can deliver higher ROI.
  - andsoitis 9mo ago
    > It has delivered a better ROI in the same way a ponzi scheme can deliver higher ROI. It sounds like you're arguing that high valuation compared to fundamentals means buyers expect gains from future buyers paying more sounds like a Ponzi, but it isn't, it is speculation. The comparison doesn't make sense. Some surface features of speculative markets can look Ponzi-like, but the underlying mechanics are very different. A Ponzi-scheme returns to earlier participants directly from money contributed by later participants, with no real underlying business generating value. In a Ponzi-scheme, there is no real product (or it is irrelevant), the operator controls payouts, and investors are promised steady or guaranteed returns. None of that applies to Tesla stock. Ponzi-schemes hide losses, smooth returns, collapse suddenly. Tesla stock is volatile, has had large drawdowns, and public reflects bad news, margin compression, demand shifts. Volatility is a sign of a market, not a Ponzi.
    - boroboro4 9mo ago
      Mechanics is exactly the same - it's not Tesla revenues driving returns for investors, it's new investors putting their money into the stock at very high price.
paxys 9mo ago
There's nothing to understand really. Tesla is a meme stock, and will keep rising as long as Elon and others keep hyping it up.
- mapontosevenths 9mo ago
  I don't understand why this keeps working. The dude doing the hyping is widely hated. 67% of Americans have said they'll never consider buying a Tesla. 56% cite Musk as either the entire reason or part of the reason. [0] Tesla IS Elon Musk. Without him they're nothing, with him they can't access 2/3rds of the market. Why would anyone invest in that? [0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-thirds-of-americans-now-say-they-wouldnt-drive-a-tesla--and-most-of-them-cite-elon-musk-as-the-reason-why-according-to-a-new-poll-152619516.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-thirds-of-americans-now-say-t...
  - vkou 9mo ago
    Stock valuations are not a democracy of public opinion, they are the product of investors putting their money into the stock. Musk is a shit human, but to an investor, everything he touches turns to gold. Whether his companies make anything useful doesn't matter, what matters is that the stock price in his companies goes up, so people give him more money. This works until it doesn't.
  - iknowstuff 9mo ago
    TSLA investors: * don't believe the 67% will follow through with that after experiencing FSD * don't need 67% of Americans to purchase the car. Robotaxi use is plenty. * look beyond the American market and its pathetic 5% EV share.
    - mapontosevenths 9mo ago
      Personally, I suspect they're very wrong about the first two points, but that's just my opinion. Thanks for explaining the other side of it.
    - dzhiurgis 9mo ago
himinlomax 9mo ago
The promise of self driving is what's driving Tesla stock. Two things can happen: The dream is a bust, and Tesla is worthless. Or the dream pans out, and almost all other car companies are worth a lot less. Unless you absolutely want to believe that either self driving is impossible, or Tesla is uniquely unable to achieve it, the valuation is not entirely unwarranted. Put shortly, Tesla is not a car company, it's a bet on self-driving cars.
- Animats 9mo ago
  A more likely outcome is that all major auto manufacturers offer self driving. Ford and Mercedes already have Level 3 systems. Toyota is working with Waymo. Several Chinese automakers have self driving, at various levels of quality. It's going to become a routine feature of cars. Tesla isn't even the leader.
- debo_ 9mo ago
  Well, they don't have a self-driving car but they do have a self-driving share price!
- Scubabear68 9mo ago
  This omits the fact that Musk has slashed costs in critical areas of Tesla cars, notably in relying only on visual sensors. They abandoned the hardware most promising to help enable self-driving.
- neogodless 9mo ago
  There's a simple third option you omitted: Tesla is not the only company to achieve self-driving, and all companies that achieve it share the market with them. (Or the fourth option, it will take decades for self-driving to take even a significant market of "driving" as humans continue to want to own and drive cars rather than short-term rentals.)
- kilna 9mo ago
  Framing it as unwarranted to not think "Tesla is uniquely unable to achieve it"...? Seriously? The real question is if Tesla is uniquely ABLE to achieve it, above others in the market... including new startups or tech/auto-maker partnerships which may yet form. Tesla has some supply chain innovation, but none of what they do can't be replicated... and Musk's slavish commitment to video as opposed to LIDAR is hobbling them.
malshe 9mo ago
If you want to understand how Tesla bulls pump the stock, check out any of the numerous videos of Dan Ives you will find on YouTube. He is regularly invited on CNBC and other financial new media as well as on financial blogs/vlogs. Here is one recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecLsZ4bkW6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecLsZ4bkW6Q
- moogly 9mo ago
  Wow, that is the least confidence-inspiring person I've ever listened to (and perhaps laid eyes upon).
  - sidibe 9mo ago
    I think somehow the goofiness and untrustworthiness of the pumpers is a way to select their audience, just like how spammers intentionally misspell to not waste their time on people with discernment
1970-01-01 9mo ago
Because you're getting a biased storyline both here and over there. The 4680 supply chain isn't a requirement for anything to succeed at Tesla. The product still sells, just with lower profit per unit. At best, it marks the removal of the current Cybertruck battery pack chemistry. Everything else about the future of Tesla is (as always) clickbait speculation.
vinyl7 9mo ago
Stock market is all based on vibes at this point. Giant gambling system
- y0eswddl 9mo ago
  Has been for much of the late-and post-ZIRP period. Our so-called "gdp" is mostly rent and legal ponzi schemes
bgwalter 9mo ago
Tesla has the government and a vast propaganda apparatus behind it: https://fortune.com/2025/03/20/howard-lutnick-pumps-tesla-stock/ https://fortune.com/2025/03/20/howard-lutnick-pumps-tesla-st... “If you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters. In this economy we have a billionaire clan selling hot air and backing each other up. The main "achievements" of this administration are in pumping Bitcoin, "AI", cannabis sales and and online gambling.
y0eswddl 9mo ago
have because despite the story that most people try to tell about the market and the economy... in the late- and post-ZIRP era, it's been mostly based on Hype, Feelings, and Vibes. It's why the entire S&P 500 teeters on the back of 7 companies without any presently viable paths to profitability that would justify the current valuations. It's why repeatedly lying for a decade+ made Elon so rich even though the business output and fundamentals never really matched the valuation. Still doesn't - this valuation is mostly vestigial beliefs that AI would eliminate an entire workforce ("history often rhymes") of drivers and replace car ownership with subscription. The majority of the performance in the market has little to do with actual material value being produced and everything to do with how much rent finance bros think they can extract from the stock.
chrsw 9mo ago
I see a lot of Teslas on the road. But I spend a lot of time in Massachusetts and some in California.
Tycho 9mo ago
Think of Tesla as a well-funded pharmaceutical company that has invented a cure for a widespread ailment (call it “driving”) and now is waiting on regulatory approval.
Veedrac 9mo ago
The stock market learns from experience, because it's made of people who learn from experience. Imagine an investor's experience with TSLA. From the beginning, they're flooded with news reports about 'fundamentals' this, 'fundamentals' that, about how Tesla would imminently collapse, how it's a scam, yada yada. Said investors _constantly_ see themselves being right and those skeptics wrong. Tesla is in fact disrupting an industry. They really are just continuing to scale. Marginal profitability keeps going up. Their cars keep getting better. FSD keeps getting better. The competition that people kept pointing at kept failing to materialize. None of this seems to change the skeptics' byline. Tesla is actually in a materially worse position than it was a few years ago, by many metrics, but the stock price isn't set by 'fundamentals', it's set by the people setting demand for the stock. With TSLA, this is disproportionately going to be people who have learned to and gotten rich from ignoring the people loudly telling them why investing in Tesla is a bad idea. A market will correct eventually, but corrections either require people to change their minds or run out of capital. Neither has happened yet, so the market can't correct.
rich_sasha 9mo ago
My take is there are not really any reasonable Tesla investors left. Due to a steady supply of Real Believers, anyone with a short bet got burnt time after time. So these people are no longer shorting. Sane long-only people, likewise have been out for a long time. You're left with a clique of people who won't sell regardless, and when Elon promises to make ice cream with robotaxies, they'll buy a bit more stock. When only irrational people trade something, the price and market for it are irrational too.
throw-12-16 9mo ago
Teslas CEO bought the presidency of the USA.

doctorpangloss 9mo ago

what would it look like to directly sell EV batteries to consumers? what would have to happen? this sort of happened. the people who sold these battery materials for the 4680 thought they were making a B2B sale, and they still wound up making a B2C sale - that ended in disaster - in disguise.

ajross 9mo ago
> 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/dp/B0FNMWF8D9 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 meta-spin the failure as "supply chain collapse", etc... Obviously, no, you can't just buy a bunch of 21700 cells and stuff them in the car yourself, the balancing and calibration needs to happen in an integrated way and that repair (digging into a 400V DC battery!) is just way too dangerous for amateurs. But the batteries themselves are mature technology and kinda boring.
- alright2565 9mo ago
  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.
  - tclancy 9mo ago
    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.

jqpabc123 9mo ago

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-tesla-robotaxi-will-cover-half-us-population-end-year/ https://electrek.co/2025/07/23/elon-musk-with-straight-face-...

coliveira 9mo ago
Just wait another 6 months /s
- abirch 9mo ago
  Tesla isn't a car company it's a robotics company (2025) Tesla isn't a robotics company it's a meme company (2027)
  - TheOtherHobbes 9mo ago
    Tesla isn't a company (2029)
    - Maken 9mo ago
      Tesla is acquired by xAI (2026)
  - jbm 9mo ago
    The one that intrigued me more was circa the 2017 era when Tesla was supposedly an energy company. That might have justified their valuation at the time, but it turned out to be dishonest spin. Yet again, there are no adults and the shallow fabric of society fails to conceal the greed boner under the sheets.
    - rswail 9mo ago
      That's when he was bailing out the solar roof company owned by his cousins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity Being in Australia, we have the benefit of getting US, EU, CN, and other vehicle brands, as well as solar and battery suppliers. Tesla sells a lot of home batteries, but there are numerous other brands. Tesla's cars are old now, the difference is the Hyundai, Kia, Geely, ZeekR, BYD, Polestar, Mini, Lexus, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes and other brands are cars that happen to be powered by batteries, not some magic carpet of future ideas.

Neil44 9mo ago

Reuters earlier this year - "The development of the 4680 battery has been facing troubles, with the company losing 70% to 80% of the cathodes in test production compared with conventional battery makers, which lose fewer than 2% of their components to manufacturing defects, the report said." The company L&F referenced in this article were supplying said cathode material. ref https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-plans-four-new-batteries-2026-including-robotaxi-information-reports-2024-10-03/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-plans-four-new-batt...

jack_riminton 9mo ago

Electrek’s ‘reporting’ has proven so one-sided that I take all their stories with a bucket of salt. Even if the truck has been a flop I doubt their whole battery program has been. Perhaps they’re rejigging suppliers and pausing whilst they get ready to ramp up cyber cab production lines

malfist 9mo ago
And what evidence do you base those assumptions on? According to the journalists at electrek despite Tesla having capacity to manufacture 250k cybertrucks per year, they're only selling 20-25k per year
- mxschumacher 9mo ago
  and SpaceX has been a major buyer of Cybertrucks
- SonOfKyuss 9mo ago
  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
  - TheAlchemist 9mo ago
    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.
    - detritus 9mo ago
      Thanks for this - I've paid much less attention to Tesla over recent years, but my memory of Electrek was that it was a distinctly-pro Tesla outlet, but this was a few years back now.

Veserv 9mo ago

A headline that actually undersells the article. The 2,900,000,000 $ deal to 7,400 $ is not just a 99% reduction, it is actually over a 99.999% reduction. I guess that is one way to get the "march of nines" they keep promising.

wayeq 9mo ago
we humans aren't really good after the first couple 9's
amluto 9mo ago
At some point the question isn’t “how many nines” but “why is the contract worth $7400 and not $0”.
- taurath 9mo ago
  It was on some very nice letterhead and quite tastefully bound in a bespoke leather case!
- Hamuko 9mo ago
  Maybe they can still invoice Tesla for some office stationary or something.

thebruce87m 9mo ago

> In a regulatory filing today, L&F revealed that the contract’s value has been written down to just $7,386. > No, that is not a typo. $2.9 billion to roughly $7,400. Ooft. That’s one hell of a write down. Imagine the person that had to do the calculation and report it back.

AnotherGoodName 9mo ago
$7,386 seems to be roughly one Cybertruck batteries worth (the only vehicle that uses that battery). As in they literally expect to build one more Cybertruck battery and that's it. I'm guessing the excess stock in the Tesla factories covers spares for a few years already. I wonder when the cancellation will be announced by Tesla? It's all but leaked at this point.
- gota 9mo ago
  Maybe they did this to keep the contract with a symbolic value; or to avoid the headlines that Tesla 'cancelled' the contract? A '99% write down' is such an uncommon term that many people might not register it.
  - consp 9mo ago
    > Maybe they did this to keep the contract with a symbolic value; Tax reasons? Keep it on the book and write the loss off against other profit over coming years? No clue how it would work in practice but it sounds taxy.
  - em-bee 9mo ago
    posting it on HN had the opposite effect for me. if the headline was "tesla cancelled contract to buy batteries" i would not have cared. the things that still confuses me is that this is caused by tesla no longer needing these batteries, but the headline to me reads like it is caused by the partner and tesla is somehow negatively affected by that.

neuroelectron 9mo ago

I actually did want a lighter, 2 Wheel Drive Cybertruck (for $40,000). The "Long Range" trim was close. But it was actually $70k not the $60k they were saying. Get rid of the touchscreen and the four-wheel-drive steering and the electrical flush door handles, the hatch thing in the back, smaller wheels, any other electronic features like 120v inverters, etc. solid rear axel would be nice but that would be a major redesign.

homerowilson 9mo ago
Swap "solid rear axle" with "De Dion axle" and your description fits the Slate truck pretty well.
mtoner23 9mo ago
Slate truck or telo trucks could be the move
FuriouslyAdrift 9mo ago
You should look at the Slate... https://www.slate.auto/en https://www.slate.auto/en
- neuroelectron 9mo ago
  Not falling for that again, I'll consider it when it actually exists
  - FuriouslyAdrift 9mo ago
    Should be shipping next year

manoDev 9mo ago

The future of electrification is at risk because the market chose to bet on TSLA. Many companies backpedaled on EV and the POTUS is making a major push towards oil (including invading Venezuela). The future looks grim.

tartuffe78 9mo ago
The future looks Chinese.
- dyauspitr 9mo ago
  And electric
- mindslight 9mo ago
  Trump is going to be lauded in the history books for sure. The Chinese history books, that is. Before this massive self-own, we at least had a chance.
- misiti3780 9mo ago
  China's future looks very grim. China has all sorts of demographic and debt problems no one is talking about: https://open.substack.com/pub/crosscurrents28/p/chinas-broken-balance-sheet-why-i?r=7njhm&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay https://open.substack.com/pub/crosscurrents28/p/chinas-broke...
rayiner 9mo ago
The market didn’t choose to bet on Tesla. It was the only game in town for years.
gtirloni 9mo ago
For the US and the US only.
coliveira 9mo ago
They essentially gave away the market to Chinese companies, while at the same time complaining that China is "stealing" something.

everfrustrated 9mo ago

Seems odd to have a supply contract without a penalty clause.

netdur 9mo ago

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

malshe 9mo ago
Americans? Elon Musk is one person. He might be the richest person in the world but he doesn't represent us.
anderber 9mo ago
I think you're underselling what Trump and Musk has done to the stability of Democracy in the US. Aside from all that, there are other American car manufacturers with great EVs: Mustang Mach-E, Chevy Equinox/Bolt/Blazer, etc. Not saying that BYD isn't better, but comparing to Tesla, there is plenty of US competition.
- csa 9mo ago
  > Aside from all that, there are other American car manufacturers with great EVs: Mustang Mach-E, Chevy Equinox/Bolt/Blazer, etc. Teslas aren’t perfect, and they are definitely starting to get a bit dated, but the list you made has precisely zero “great EVs” imho.
  - anderber 9mo ago
    All opinions I suppose, huh?
  - rootusrootus 9mo ago
    They are as good as any Tesla, however, and in some areas better. Source: I own a Tesla Model 3 (my second) and I have owned a Bolt in the past, and currently own a Lightning. Aside from towing range, I prefer the Lightning the majority of the time. Tesla does some things better, while Ford excels in other ways. Both definitely have glaring faults.
    - 9mo ago

mocmoc 9mo ago

[flagged]

mtoner23 9mo ago
Wouldn't be if we could buy byd cars in the US
Kelteseth 9mo ago
I will never go back to a ICE car after 30k km of driving an EV
gwbas1c 9mo ago
The technology is fine, it's the leadership. Plenty of other countries are rolling out EVs fine, we (the US) just can't seem to build out the charging infrastructure or standardize on a charging port. (And don't forget that Laserdisk was quite successful for what it tried to do, and that when you buy physical videos today, they're in optical disk format.)
- reissbaker 9mo ago
  The U.S. already standardized on a charging port: Tesla's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standa...
  - gwbas1c 9mo ago
    There is no legal mandate for NACS. Cars are still sold with J1772/CCS ports, there are still CCS chargers being deployed, there are still J1772 home chargers being sold, almost every level 2 charger is J1772, and my NACS EV came with two dongles. (FWIW, the new Leaf has a NACS port that's only used for level 3 charging, and separate J1772 port for level 1/2 charging.) If there was a legal mandate for a changeover, it would be a very different story. --- We pretty much need to force NACS: Force all public chargers (level 2 and 3) to be NACS, force all cars sold to be NACS, and make it super-easy for people with older cars to get dongles.

yalogin 9mo ago

So this battery pipeline can only be used for the cybertruck? Cannot be adapted to be used with the other vehicles? That seems odd.

lysace 9mo ago
[flagged]
- nutjob2 9mo ago
  Maybe your brain could tell us where the batteries are being used and who is producing them. You know, evidence, instead of just something that resides in your brain.
  - lysace 9mo ago
    > can only be used for the cybertruck vs > where the batteries are being used It's just a different battery cell size with less overhead. 46 by 80 mm instead of e.g. 21 by 70 mm.
    - nutjob2 9mo ago
      I get it, but if the supplier shutting it down suggests that its not being used anywhere else. So besides speculation, where is the evidence. In particular I'm wondering about production within Tesla, another supplier, anything that suggests there is a model adopting them.
tensor 9mo ago
The thing you made up sure seems odd yes! The facts are that it is not currently used in any other vehicle and we can assume by the fact that the contract was written down by 99% that there is no plan to do so in the near term, otherwise they'd actually, you know, need the batteries. But don't let facts get in the way of some good bullshit!

jeffbee 9mo ago

The big lie that you've all been sold is that Tesla has any kind of battery technology at all. Outside of repackaging Panasonic (in America) and other batteries (abroad), Tesla has dabbled in a few experiments and they all failed.

fencepost 9mo ago

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 [more] big deal." 2023 article confirming NMC chemistry: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/ad14d0 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/ad14d0 5/2025 article discussing change to LFP: https://roboticsbiz.com/teslas-4680-lfp-battery-explained-cheaper-safer-and-made-in-the-usa/ https://roboticsbiz.com/teslas-4680-lfp-battery-explained-ch... 3/2025 article comparing BYD's LFP and Tesla's NMC/NCM: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666386425000529 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266638642...

iknowstuff 9mo ago
This makes sense but does it make sense to manufacture LFPs as 4680 cylinders instead of rectangular blocks/blades, given https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Blade_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Blade_battery ?
- ggreer 9mo ago
  Which cell technology to use depends on the application. Tesla actually uses BYD blade batteries in some of their vehicles sold in Europe. The main issue with prismatic cells is that to be safe, they must be made with LFP chemistry, which hurts energy density. LFP is also worse at charging/discharging when cold, though battery management software mostly solves that. Cylindrical cells make sense for higher performance NMC and NCA chemistries, as they can be cooled more easily (coolant lines can run in the voids between cylindrical cells), and any single cell failure is less likely to cascade to other cells. Batteries with cylindrical cells were easier to repair, but nowadays cells are welded together instead of bolted, so that's no longer an advantage.
  - vel0city 9mo ago
    > The main issue with prismatic cells is that to be safe, they must be made with LFP chemistry, which hurts energy density This is obviously untrue. Tons of other chemistries have used prismatic cells with good safety as well. You think Macbooks and iPhones use LFP or cylinder cells? > Batteries with cylindrical cells were easier to repair, It can be just as easy to repair a prismatic battery as a cylinder battery. It all comes down to the layout of the battery. And as you mentioned, how the battery is constructed, if the battery is structural, etc.

maxdo 9mo ago

If you see electrek news , these are just plain sour haters. Cyberteack is a flop. This battery has a parallel track and is used elsewhere so conclusions are just basesless .

manmal 9mo ago
Isn’t this design DOA though, with LFP and upcoming solid state batteries?
nutjob2 9mo ago
Where else are the batteries used?
- Synaesthesia 9mo ago
  It says in the article other manufacturers are using 4680 tech in their cars, BMW, Rivian ...

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

submeta 9mo ago

Musk increasingly feels like a charlatan selling snake oil. He is great at hype and storytelling, not so great at execution. Big promises, missed timelines, excuses reframed as genius. He has been promising fully autonomous Teslas since at least 2015 and “level 5” self-driving within a couple of years, yet cars still require human oversight and true autonomy remains elusive. He said Tesla robotaxis would be on the road by 2020 and then “next year” repeatedly, which never happened. He promised an affordable $35,000 Model 3 and a cheap family EV, but those never materialized as advertised. He unveiled the Cybertruck with specific features and price points that did not pan out, and several promised add-ons never appeared. He set repeated production deadlines for the Tesla Roadster that kept slipping for years. And his Mars colonization timelines are still nowhere near realistic. The same cycle keeps repeating, with fans focusing on a few wins while ignoring a long list of missed commitments. At some point it stops being bold vision and starts looking like a confidence game.

messyfork 9mo ago

Turns out making a box is even easier than a larger tootsie roll.

Moto7451 9mo ago

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.

bgarbiak 9mo ago
I guess it depends on who you’d ask. BMW made a switch from prismatic cells to cylindrical design only recently, and it looks like the biggest gain was in costs and weight efficiency. The range/capacity ratio didn’t improve that much. Although, to be fair, none of these parameters depend on battery alone.

seltzered_ 9mo ago

Worth noting this Branden Flasch video from a year ago talking about how the charging speed on the 4680 pack tesla Model Y was uncompetitively slow and arguably shouldn't have been sold: https://youtu.be/eQeziVkRwSA https://youtu.be/eQeziVkRwSA

beepbooptheory 9mo ago

A little tangential, but seeing now the name of the steering-wheel-less cabs, why'd they name it Cyber{truck,cab} anyway? Doesn't it imply we use them to drive through the internet?

tokai 9mo ago
Its even better with the ancient Greek definition of cyber. Then it becomes a steer-truck/cab, literally implying the opposite.

nerdo 9mo ago

What is TSLA's valuation based on anymore? Maybe next week it'll be the moon colony they’ll have up and running in 2028.

mvdtnz 9mo ago

This 2 hour old entry with 242 comments and 231 points has dropped off the front page. Interesting.

simianparrot 9mo ago

[dead]

nate 9mo ago

I know there’s a lot of Tesla/Elon hate here. I’m not denying any of it. I’m just sharing a genuinely strange experience I wasn’t expecting. We needed a car again. Sold ours a year ago and got by with Uber, rentals, taxis. Life changed a bit and we needed something more predictable. I was planning to buy something used and boring and didn’t really care what. My wife asked, “What about an EV?” We can’t charge in our rental garage, but there’s a Tesla Supercharger literally across the street. Took a Tesla test drive mostly out of curiosity. And… I drove maybe 1% of that drive. The rest was on full self driving (FSD). Fast forward, I now own a Tesla, and about 99% of my driving is on FSD. Important context: when we picked it up, it was still on v13. It immediately made an illegal turn and scared some pedestrians in a crosswalk. So yes, I get the concern and skepticism. I had it too. Then v14.2 landed. Whatever they changed in that release feels real. It’s not just incremental. It feels like a different system. Elon says “we finally cracked it” (and probably says that all the time), so take that with a grain of salt, but with my very small sample size… it kind of looks like they might have. Two moments that really stuck with me: While self-driving, the car clearly anticipated a bus making a massive wide turn into our lane and hung way back until the maneuver was complete. It saw that developing long before I did. At ~70 mph, I was mid lane-change with my blinker on when a driver towing a large trailer decided to drift into the same lane without checking their blind spot. The Tesla instantly aborted the lane change and smoothly moved back, avoiding what would’ve been a nasty accident. No panic, no hard braking, no drama. I know this probably sounds like shilling. I’m not interested in the politics and don’t want to defend any of that. But it genuinely feels like stepping into the future, and honestly a much safer way to drive. I want Rivian, Waymo, whoever to nail this too. I hope they do. But right now, Tesla seems to actually have something that crossed a line from “demo” to “wow, this is real.” I didn’t expect to come away thinking that. But here we are.

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ffffffu 9mo ago
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elif 9mo ago

There's a lot of speculation here. The actual facts of this reporting could just as likely be explained by vertical integration, very typical of Tesla, or of a supplier shift due to absurdly high tariffs.

wilg 9mo ago

Unfortunately nobody else makes any good electric cars at this time, and certainly none that have anything approaching FSD. But you can't buy one due to Elon's treachery. It's extremely frustrating.

KnuthIsGod 9mo ago

"In a regulatory filing today, L&F revealed that the contract’s value has been written down to just $7,386. No, that is not a typo. $2.9 billion to roughly $7,400." https://electrek.co/2025/12/29/tesla-4680-battery-supply-chain-collapses-partner-writes-down-dea/ https://electrek.co/2025/12/29/tesla-4680-battery-supply-cha...

omarforgotpwd 9mo ago

Tesla is actually starting to make cathodes in house via a dry process, which is why they are no longer buying cathode material from this supplier. Typical sloppy reporting from Electrek.

RataNova 9mo ago
Vertical integration only makes sense if you're actually ramping output
- rconti 9mo ago
  I think the missing information here is whether there are plans to put the 4680 in vehicles that sell well.
mysecretaccount 9mo ago
> Tesla is actually starting to make cathodes in house via a dry process, which is why they are no longer buying cathode material from this supplier. The latter part of this is speculative. Tesla may have begun shipping dry cathodes but it isn't clear that they're capable of matching the former third-party volume. Tesla would absolutely need the additional 4680 volume if Cybertruck sales were meeting their original projections (as opposed to now when they are ~an order of magnitude lower).
- DustinBrett 9mo ago
  The entire article is speculative.
  - mysecretaccount 9mo ago
    The poster to which I responded and the article are each speculating on the "why" for this contract. That said, we do not need to speculate about Cybertruck sales - Business Insider reported that Tesla sold only 5,400 of them in 2025Q3. We know from this that they do not need the same level of third-party 4680 capacity, and (call it speculative if you so desire) this is the most parsimonious explanation for the L&F write down.

ggm 9mo ago

How easily can stocks be redirected to eg energy supply logistics and make battery stacks? How easily can the inputs be redirected by the source to more viable longterm contract sells? How strongly will this push back on mining and minerals in related fields? E.g. palladium prices have collapsed, could this kind of thing move mining product pricing?

syspec 9mo ago

Don't worry, the 99% reduction in battery materials is just a strategic pivot to an 'asset-light' approach. The 4680 supply chain isn't collapsing, it’s just being 'optimized' for a future where cars apparently don't need batteries—just FSD subscriptions and robotaxis that run on optimism.

timzaman 9mo ago

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throw-12-16 9mo ago

I ride in budget BYD’s regularly in Asia. Tesla is absolutely fucked.

ryukoposting 9mo ago

Is anybody surprised by the cratering demand for the Cybertruck (directly attributable to 4680 troubles)? Tesla sold the idea of a crazy space truck to a bunch of techie dorks, who then pulled out of the deal when faced with the reality of owning a vehicle that they have to clean with Barkeeper's Friend. This was the obvious result.

IceHegel 9mo ago
I would buy a Cybertruck tomorrow if it had a gas engine. I would buy a $10,000 or $15,000 gas generator add-on if it enabled unlimited range (provided I have gasoline). There are just too many places, even in California, where I have to limit my trip because of electric range. I'm surprised no one has done the generator.
- marticode 9mo ago
  It's ugly, poorly built, expensive and not very good as a truck. A gas engine will not fix all these flaws.
  - misiti3780 9mo ago
    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 ?
    - PTOB 9mo ago
      1958 Chevy Corvette. Looks way more futuristic.
      - misiti3780 9mo ago
        maybe at the time, not anymore. that car is ugly.
        9mo ago

sidcool 9mo ago

The picture of Tesla across internet is so polarizing. X and YouTube is full of Tesla is the future vibe. Electrek and HN is calling it a complete scam. I am sure it's in the middle, but I can't find a balanced opinion anywhere. But I have seen Electrek being too negative about Tesla always. And never reporting anything positive as such.

fedeb95 9mo ago
research what's in the product if you're interested in buying, and then take your risk as a consumer as with any new product one buys. Or research into the company if you want to buy shares.
jfoster 9mo ago
In many parts of the world, you can walk into a Tesla store and tell them you're not interested in purchasing but would like to try it anyway. More likely than not, they will give you a free test drive. You'll be able to decide for yourself whether it's the future or a scam.
anthonybsd 9mo ago
Elektrek was one of the biggest Tesla cheerleaders until 2023 or so. Founder promoting neonazi and fascist ideas kinda made them sour on the brand, can you blame them?
- sidibe 9mo ago
  I think that's probably the main reason but also Fred Lambert "earned" a free roadster through referrals gassing up Elon and Tesla and as always with Elons promises it has not materialized.
  - nebula8804 9mo ago
    He had numerous problems with his early edition Model 3 in the Canadian winter and when complaining about it got into a spat with Musk over it on Twitter. Afterwards all 'access' to Tesla was forever lost I guess. The roadster fiasco came later I think. Roadsters are reserved for friends of Elon only regardless of what referrals they got. THink there is some fine print to disqualify people after the fact. Rich Rebuilds lost his roadster for much more benign things. (Reverse engineering Tesla stuff)

spullara 9mo ago

I think the amount of vitriol in this thread directed at one of the most successful tech entrepreneurs of all time is sad. He may be too optimistic in his predictions but at least he has goals worth achieving and doesn't stop just because it doesn't work the first time.

arghandugh 9mo ago
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- reissbaker 9mo ago
  One of the greatest mass murderers in history...? I uh, am morbidly curious to hear your thought process here.
  - arghandugh 9mo ago
    If you are unfamiliar with the shuttering of USAID this year, you “uh” be in an information bubble that is not serving you. Search terms that will help you on your journey include “DOGE”, “Kenya”, and “cholera”.
    - reissbaker 9mo ago
      ...Curiosity satisfied, I suppose. While I disagree with some of the USAID cuts, I don't think that "not giving charity" is the same thing as "mass murder."
      - arghandugh 9mo ago
        Well, that’s between you and your worth as a human being I suppose. I do thank you for doing the legwork.
- IshKebab 9mo ago
  [flagged]

epolanski 9mo ago

Which bmw models use that battery? In any case I'm more and more convinced that Tesla does not hold any significant advantage anymore over legacy automakers in EV space like Volkswagen group, which has 20+ electric models.

MagicMoonlight 9mo ago

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.

mft_ 9mo ago
I' m not defending Tesla for a moment, but I disagree with your take... 1) Wasn't it always inevitable that, once tha large established car manufacturers really started to knuckle down to creating EVs, that Tesla's lead and 'moat' would mostly vanish? They still have some of the most efficient EVs available, and their UI/UX is still one of the best, but of course they'll face compeition, and of course their competitors will try to differentiate in all directions, and especially those that are superficially attractive (and less expensive to deliver) like interior design. 2) Back in his earlier, pre-crazy days, Musk suggested (something along the lines of) that Tesla's goal wasn't to be a huge successful car company, so much as to prove that EVs were viable as everyday cars, and drive a revolution in the car industry. By this measure, they've mostly succeeded. --- Big picture, totally agree that Tesla seems to have lost its way over the past few years, which unsurprisingly correlates (to an outside observer) with Musk's apparent changes in judgement and behaviour, with its consequent impact on Tesla's image and desirability amongst consumers. The Cybertruck turns out to have been a huge misstep, and not having delivered a 'model 2' - i.e. a small mid-sized option - (maybe instead?) is a huge miss.
- trollbridge 9mo ago
  Advantage for Tesla is that the rest of the auto industry has lost their way, too. For example, the infotainment in a brand new, expensive vehicle like a new GM is atrociously bad, unreliable, and slow/clunky to use.
  - nebula8804 9mo ago
    Have you used it? The Equinox EV/LYRIQ has a large OLED screen spanning a lot of the dash and the Android based menu is pretty decent.

RataNova 9mo ago

Yet the 4680 was supposed to be a platform shift, not a single-model experiment

constantcrying 9mo ago

In other news: https://www.electrive.com/2025/12/17/powerco-starts-unified-cell-production-in-salzgitter/ https://www.electrive.com/2025/12/17/powerco-starts-unified-... It is totally absurd how far Tesla has fallen behind legacy auto makers, who are now starting up their own battery production and are very close to actually releasing a 25.000 Euro car in Europe.

spprashant 9mo ago

I am no big fan of Tesla, but Electrek has a clear bias in their reporting.

cramcgrab 9mo ago

Gotta love Electrek and Fred Lambert, he’s managed to lose a crap-ton of money on Tesla stock. What a total loser. I always read his stuff and think the opposite, that’s the safe bet.

danity 9mo ago

Take anything on electrek.co with a grain of salt, it is a wildly anti-Tesla, pro-China website.

tutus 9mo ago
Is there something you disagree with in the article or you just don’t like the author?
- CursedSilicon 9mo ago
  Whenever I see people decry it as "anti Tesla" or "anti Elon" I just wonder "what have they done they can be covered positively?" While I'm an out and proud "Tesla hater" and freely admit my own bias. The defenders never actually seem to have any "look here's something good that [site] overlooked!" It's just whining about the site being anti-Tesla
  - xboxnolifes 9mo ago
    Its not about complementing the bad with some good. Its about how much the bad is exxagerated.
    - CursedSilicon 9mo ago
      Is it 'exaggeration' when it's all that's there to report on? Would it be less 'exaggeration' if the site only talked about Tesla "half" the time? (that is to say, just ignored Tesla rather than reported on issues)
Spunkie 9mo ago
I don't have any comments on their supposed slant, but I do know electrek.co articles often contain mistakes or inaccuracies. When I comment on the articles or email their authors/editors about the inaccuracies they never respond, nor fix the article. So yeah... Take anything on electrek.co with a grain of salt.

cwp 9mo ago

This article is drivel. If a supplier writes down the value of a contract with Tesla, they're saying Tesla is buying fewer batteries, or will in the near future. That is, there is a lack of demand for the batteries. If you're determined to take this as bad news for Tesla, rather than bad news for L&F, you could maybe speculate about lack of demand for Cybertrucks, but spinning it as "supply chain collapse" is just silly.

phtrivier 9mo ago

> Despite a production capacity of 250,000 units per year at Giga Texas, the Cybertruck is currently selling at a run rate of roughly 20,000 to 25,000 units annually. How can such an overcapacity be possible ? Is that a massive failure of market analysis ? On the other hand, is the factory building the cybertruck easy to modify to build other, most successful models ? I hear there is demand for billions of autonomous robotaxis.

deleted 9mo ago
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danans 9mo ago
> How can such an overcapacity be possible ? Is that a massive failure of market analysis ? Partially. Turns out that the cost, size, impracticality, and look turn off most people who would buy an EV. But then there is also the active brand sabotage by the CEO, whose state of mind the Cybertruck seems to originate from and embody.

holtkam2 9mo ago

I’ll buy a cybertruck if and only if the board replaces Elon. I’m serious