Elon Musk defends Tesla’s Battery Day during podcast, saying the results will speak for themselves

Tesla’s Battery Day was deemed a failure after CEO Elon Musk presented a prototype via a PowerPoint presentation instead of a working battery – but Musk has defended the event in a recent podcast.

Musk was a guest on the ‘Sway,’ where he said ‘the average person has no idea’ when it comes to manufacturing.

‘Large scale manufacturing technology is somewhere between 1,000 percent to 10,000 percent harder than the prototype,’ he explained.

He also hit at the press, saying ‘the coverage was sad.’

‘Most of the press takeaway was a sad reflection of their understanding,’ he continued.

Musk also revealed that Tesla has produced many of the tabless batteries, which have been in working vehicles since May.

 

Tesla’s Battery Day was deemed a failure after CEO Elon Musk presented a prototype via a PowerPoint presentation instead of a working battery – but Musk has defended the event in a recent podcast

On September 22, Musk stepped on stage overlooking a parking lot of Tesla vehicles – each with a shareholder sitting inside in order to adhere to social distancing protocols.

Prior to the event, many had speculated the Musk was set to unveil the firm’s highly-anticipated ‘million-mile battery’ that was said to clock up over a million miles over the course of their lifespan – rather than powering a car for a single million-mile-journey without recharging.

Musk said in a tweet that the battery improvements to be unveiled will not be in high-volume production until 2022.

‘Important note about Tesla Battery Day unveil tomorrow,’ said Musk in a tweet early on Tuesday.

Musk was a guest on the ‘Sway,’ where he said ‘the average person has no idea’ when it comes to manufacturing. ‘Large scale manufacturing technology is somewhere between 1,000 percent to 10,000 percent harder than the prototype,’ he explained. He also hit at the press, saying ‘the coverage was sad'

Musk was a guest on the ‘Sway,’ where he said ‘the average person has no idea’ when it comes to manufacturing. ‘Large scale manufacturing technology is somewhere between 1,000 percent to 10,000 percent harder than the prototype,’ he explained. He also hit at the press, saying ‘the coverage was sad’

Musk also revealed that Tesla has produced many of the tabless batteries, which have been in working vehicles since May

Musk also revealed that Tesla has produced many of the tabless batteries, which have been in working vehicles since May 

‘This affects long-term production, especially Semi, Cybertruck & Roadster, but what we announce will not reach serious high-volume production until 2022.’

However, investors were livid when Musk only had a prototype shown in a presentation to share with them – Tesla’s market value dropped by $50 billion after the event.

But the money lost has not deterred Musk from his path, as he defended Tesla’s work during the podcast.

‘I am not trying to convince people. The results will speak for themselves,’ he said.

‘We have produced many of the cells. We have had cars driving with them since May.

‘My focus is never to convince people why they should invest in Tesla. Sell your stock. I don’t care.’

It seems Tesla’s main objective is to speed up the transition from gas powered cars to electric, which is why Musk was hopefully about the tabless battery.

However, the CEO says there are two obstacles that the firm and others need to work around – affordability and volume.

‘In order to transform energy into transport, you have to make ungodly, gargantuan amount of battery cells,’ said Musk.

‘The longer we wait to transition to sustainable energy, the greater the risk that we take.’

‘We have to make the battery cells cost less so more people can afford them and as I said, we have to make a truly almost unimaginable vast amount of cells.’

‘Electric cars are the future – there is no question about at it this time.’

Although Tesla’s stock plummeted last week, the firm ‘is not in mortal danger’ as it was three years ago.

Musk noted that Tesla has been on the brink of failure for a long time, but has been able to dig itself out.

‘In order to transform energy into transport, you have to make ungodly, gargantuan amount of battery cells,’ said Musk. ‘The longer we wait to transition to sustainable energy, the greater the risk that we take.’ Pictured is the Tesla tabless battery prototype

‘In order to transform energy into transport, you have to make ungodly, gargantuan amount of battery cells,’ said Musk. ‘The longer we wait to transition to sustainable energy, the greater the risk that we take.’ Pictured is the Tesla tabless battery prototype 

‘The thing that Tesla has been able to achieve is get to volume manufacturing and have sustainable positive free cash flow,’ he said.

There have been hundreds of car startups and the only one that has not gone bankrupt is Ford and Tesla.’

‘The only way a new company breaks in is that the car is so compelling, people are willing to pay extra for that car.’

The tabless battery, dubbed 4680, is currently being manufactured at Tesla’s pilot Fremont gigafactory in a bid to reduce cost and lower the sales price of its electric vehicles closer to gasoline-powered cars. 

Eliminating the tabs allows for continual motion through the system, which provides six times the power and enables a 16 percent range increase to vehicles.

For the design, Tesla took the existing foils of traditional batteries and created a laser pattern to form dozens of connections in the material.

Not only does it provide benefits to vehicles, but the design is easier to manufacture, needs fewer parts and without tabs it has a shorter electrical path length.

By reducing the distance the electron has to travel, the cell has less thermal issues and a shorter path length in a larger tabless cell, according to Musk, who explained that though the cell is bigger, it measures 80 millimeters in length, the power to weight ratio is better than a smaller cell with tabs.

‘This is quite hard to do,’ said Musk at the live Battery Day event.

‘Nobody’s done it before. So.. It really took a tremendous amount of effort within Tesla engineering to figure out how do we make a fricking tabless cell and make it actually work and connect it to the top cap.’

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk