Author: EVAI

The Polestar 3 starts deliveries in the U.S. this summer, and this week we managed to spend some time behind the wheel. The electric midsize SUV brings clean Swedish design, seating for five, and up to 517 hp, and there’s a lot more to like beyond those attributes. Spain’s Hispano Suiza revealed a new version of its Carmen electric hypercar. The…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in Thursday’s annual shareholder meeting, called himself “a helpful accelerant” to the company’s future, as shareholders approved a pay package for Musk valued at $46 billion based on current stock prices.

Meanwhile, one aspect that was due to change the company’s trajectory, cut costs, and enable everything from a $25,000 Tesla EV in 2023 to mass-production of the Semi in 2021 hasn’t yet arrived in 2024: the dramatic cost reductions of Tesla’s 4680 cells.

“With respect to our own cell production, we do see a path to cost parity by the end of this year—a very difficult path to cost parity,” Musk summed. 

Battery Day and 4680 aimed to halve the cost

Musk still in 2024 talking about getting cost parity with commercial cells in sight is a very different, sobering outcome than the company had hoped for when it revealed the strategy as part of its September 2020 Battery Day. Tesla made the 4680 cells and its own future production of them the centerpoint of that event and claimed it would make the breakthrough cell at half the cost, on an energy basis, versus suppliers—and boasted that it could even supply it to other automakers. 

Comparing 4680 vs. 2170 – Panasonic

“Currently our 4680s cost more than our suppliers’,” Musk revealed on Thursday, as he noted the volatility of EV battery prices. “They cost more than the suppliers’ today but they cost less than the suppliers’ a year ago.”

“There’s a bit of a feast-famine thing with battery cell suppliers, kind of for VRAM chips,” he added. “But we expect to achieve cost parity, even be much lower than the supplier cell price today, by the end of the year.”

Tesla’s big battery bet hasn’t paid off—yet

The cost of EV battery cells has indeed been a rollercoaster ride. After Battery Day, EV battery cost soared to new heights in 2022, hampering EV affordability. Lithium-ion battery prices dropped through 2023 and into this year, but they’re not showing signs of stopping. Goldman Sachs analysts now anticipate a nearly 40% decline in EV battery prices between 2023 and 2025, which in turn will boost sales. 

Tesla Battery Day – Bigger costs less

In so many respects, the economics of EV battery supply are looking very different than how they presented around Battery Day. There is now such a global glut in battery production, if you consider China, that China itself now makes enough batteries to cover all global EV production, according to an assessment earlier this spring by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. And in format, no other major automaker has yet committed to the 4680 cylindrical format (46 mm diameter, 80 mm height). BMW has, for instance, instead committed to 4695 (same 46 mm diameter, greater 95 mm height).

Musk had said in 2021 that without Tesla’s own production of the 4680 cells, it wouldn’t have enough for mass-production of the Semi—a stage of Semi ramp that Musk only confirmed in this week’s event. 

In 2021, Panasonic’s top battery executive said that mass-producing the 4680 cell format would “require new techniques.” But that didn’t stop it and other top battery suppliers from vying to make the new format. 

2025 Tesla Cybertruck – Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.

Tesla’s VP of engineering Lars Moravy did give an update on 4680 production during the company’s Q1 financial call in April, suggesting it’s at a rate leading to about 7 gigawatt-hours per year, with enough to stay ahead of the production ramp of the Cybertruck, which is otherwise the only model to use them. 

As Musk’s comments from Thursday suggest, Tesla may soon be able to match other batteries and battery makers, but half the cost still looks as far away now as it did in 2020.

Tesla is developing three new EVs, but appears to have nixed the second-generation Roadster.

During the automaker’s 2024 stockholder meeting, which was live-streamed on YouTube Thursday, CEO Elon Musk announced three upcoming “amazing” EVs and showed a slide with three vehicles under covers alongside the current Tesla lineup. However, the Roadster was absent.

Future Tesla models teased at 2024 stockholder meeting

The Roadster has now been delayed for more than four years, as it was originally due for a start of production in 2020. Musk has at several times teased rocket tech in the form of a “SpaceX package,” with actual rocket thrusters. Tesla began accepting reservations after the Roadster’s 2017 reveal, asking for a $50,000 deposit for the standard version and the full $250,000 price upfront for the Founders Series launch special.

Musk didn’t go into detail on the new EVs, but said later in the presentation that “figuring out ways to make more affordable vehicles is really the game-changer…we have to make it affordable, that’s essential.” But Tesla has already reportedly shut down one affordable EV. After an April report suggesting that Tesla had nixed its $25,000 Model 2 project in favor of robotaxis, Musk announced a Tesla Robotaxi reveal for August 8.

Tesla Semi (Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.)

Tesla has also teased the idea of a van for a long time, which one of those products appears to be based on the outline. The shape in the bottom lefthand corner has a distinctively van-like profile.

Musk also said he had just approved a mass-production ramp of the Tesla Semi. The company has said in the past that it depends on battery cell supply, and it appears to be plentiful right now. 

More than 20 classic Mercedes-Benz AMG cars are headed to auction Bonhams claims this is the largest collection of pre-merger AMG parts and cars to come up for sale AMG was an independent tuning house before Mercedes began collaborating with the outfit in 1990 Bonhams will offer a collection of more than 20 AMG-modified Mercedes-Benz classics, as…

Mazda cut the price of the sedan and hatchback by $200 The pricing strategy keeps it competitive with other entry-level cars 2025 Mazda 3 hatchback arrives this summer, followed by the sedan in the fall Mazda cut the price of the Mazda 3 compact sedan and hatchback by $200, the brand disclosed last week. That brings the starting price down to…

2024 Nissan GT-R T-spec Takumi costs $152,985, including destination 2024 Nissan GT-R Skyline costs $132,985 The GT-R joins the Audi R8 and Acura NSX as other discontinued sports cars The Nissan GT-R supercar won’t be back for the 2025 model year, Nissan confirmed on Friday. Godzilla dies after a 16-year model run, with production ending in Japan…

2024 will be the final year for the R35 Nissan GT-R The R35 Nissan GT-R lived for 16 years Nissan has already confirmed a next-generation GT-R Nissan on Friday announced pricing for two limited-edition models that mark the end of the current-generation GT-R’s almost two-decade production run. The T-spec Takumi and Skyline special editions were…

A Cybertruck police cruiser debuted, ChatGPT infiltrated the automotive scene, and Apple provided a closer look at its next-generation of CarPlay. It’s the Week in Reverse, right here at Motor Authority. UP.FIT, a division of Tesla tuner Unplugged Performance, revealed a Tesla Cybertruck cop car. The electric pickup truck isn’t just a concept…

Honda sets itself up for more affordable EVs with battery leasing. VW re-ups its ID.4 EV and expands its ChatGPT assistant. Jeep reveals more about its $25,000 model expected to arrive as soon as next year. And should we recalculate how EVs are figured into U.S. mpg rules? This and more, here at Green Car Reports. 

A $25,000 electric Jeep is arriving in the U.S. very soon, according to a Stellantis investor presentation, in the form of a 2027 Jeep Renegade EV. And according to CEO Carlos Tavares, the model will use LFP battery cells to help achieve that targeted price.

A group of Republican Senators are pushing back versus stricter emissions standards expected to lead to more EV sales—by questioning the way EVs are figured into fleet efficiency calculations. Currently they’re given an inflated value that motivates automakers as each EV effectively enables the sale of many gas-guzzlers. So between that and softer future targets introduced last week by the Biden administration, would automakers even want to give those calculations up?

Volkswagen has confirmed that the 2025 VW ID.4 will carry over with all of its changes given for 2024—including more power, more driving range, and a vastly improved interface—while more of the brand’s other models will gain its ChatGPT-based digital voice assistant. 

Battery leasing has been seen as one solution for making EVs more affordable, but nobody has tried it at scale in the U.S. Honda on Thursday announced a new joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation that it says will result in more affordable Honda EVs. For now it’s only for Japan, but could a similar scheme lead to an affordable U.S.-bound Honda EV?

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In their ongoing effort to push back against stricter emissions standards expected to lead to more EV sales, Senate Republicans have drafted a bill calling for regulators to change the way EV efficiency is calculated.

Dubbed the Recalculating Electric Vehicle Efficiency for Accuracy and Legitimacy (REVEAL) Act, the bill questions the methods the Department of Energy currently uses to calculate a petroleum-equivalent efficiency value for EVs, explains Transport Topics.

The bill calls for new criteria for these calculations, which are expressed on car window stickers as MPGe or “miles per gallon equivalent” in order to give consumers a point of comparison with gasoline and diesel-vehicle fuel economy. Republicans believe these calculations are skewed in favor of EVs.

2024 Ford F-150 Lightning Flash

“No administration should be able to rig efficiency calculations for electric cars,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement. “The REVEAL Act would prevent the secretary or energy from using these faulty calculations to prohibit the sale of gas- or diesel-powered cars or trucks.”

It’s worth noting that the Biden administration’s new emissions rules, covering model years 2027-2032, don’t prohibit the sale of gasoline or diesel-powered cars or trucks. They set tougher targets that will likely require more EV sales for automakers to meet, but they don’t specify what powertrain or mix of powertrain types must be used.

2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV WT

One way the bill aims to protect gasoline and diesel vehicles from being slandered is to require that EVs are sorted into classes comparable to internal-combustion vehicles when calculating efficiency. Automakers might not like that so much, as each EV wouldn’t enable them to build as many gas-guzzling full-size trucks, as the current rules allow. Trucks already got a softer climb from the Biden administration in fleet mpg standards versus what had originally been proposed.

While perhaps not what Republican Senators have in mind, this does beg the question of whether EPA rules should incentivize more efficient EVs—something they currently don’t entirely do—or whether upstream emissions should be included in efficiency calculations to give a better idea of an EV’s total carbon footprint.