Latest news with #BatteryDay
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Billerica company unveils a new way to make batteries
The company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday to celebrate the completion of its 'Customer Success Center,' essentially a dry room and an electrode manufacturing production line that allows clients and potential customers to do test runs, or hire AMB to make the electrodes for them. Shi was joined at the event by US Representative Lori Trahan, state interim economic development secretary Ashley Stolba, and Lily Fitzgerald, of the quasi-public Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, among others. Roughly half the cost of the $5 million center was funded through a state grant provided through MassTech. Electrodes are key components in batteries; most batteries rely on a liquid mixture to create a slurry applied to the electrodes that helps them store and release energy. But AMB's technology uses a coating of dry powder instead, and as a result is more efficient and requires less manufacturing space to make the batteries. (Plus, AMB says it's better for the environment, by avoiding the use of harmful solvents and reducing the energy demand.) Manufacturing batteries, Shi said, involves a careful balance of cost, performance, and sustainability. Usually, battery makers have to compromise on one aspect, but Shi said AMB's process excels in all three areas and helps enable battery manufacturers to expand here in the US. Advertisement 'All the battery makers realize this should be the future of manufacturing,' Shi said. Shi said a 'Battery Day' held by Elon Musk in 2020, in which the Tesla chief executive highlighted the importance of coming up with more efficient ways of building batteries through a dry-coating process, helped draw investors' attention. AMB raised $25 million in 2022, and another $44 million in the following two years based on dry-electrode technology developed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute professor Yan Wang and Heng Pan, now at Texas A&M University. AMB's investors include TDK Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and Anzu Partners. Advertisement The company has doubled its workforce in the past year, adding 25 new jobs, with plans to add 15 more in 2025. The potential for new jobs is one reason MassTech committed state funding to the project, along with the role the facility can play in helping anchor the area's growing ecosystem of battery companies. 'We have to get better at making batteries,' said MassTech's Fitzgerald. 'We think there's a really good value proposition here to keep electrode manufacturing in Massachusetts [with] such a strong potential for job creation.' This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston's business scene. Jon Chesto can be reached at
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tesla Aims to Slash China Battery Spending
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has a plan to cut China?sourced batteries by vertically integrating production, Piper Sandler's Alexander Potter says. He reiterated his Buy rating and $400 price targetimplying 16.2% upsideciting Tesla's efforts to produce in?house 4680 cells and eventually manufacture cathode materials, refine lithium, and assemble cells without Chinese inputs. Potter, after a May 30 call with battery expert Jordan Giesige, notes that Tesla's 4680 production is already approaching 0% reliance on China. The firm aims to make its own cathode active materials, lithium, anodes, electrodes and complete cells in?house, a claim unmatched by any U.S. automaker. He highlights Tesla's dry battery electrode (DBE) process as five to six times faster than traditional wet coating, which could yield material capital and operating cost savings. Giesige added that Tesla's push to build roughly 10 GWh of domestic LFP (iron?based) battery capacity could meet 25% of the 40 GWh annual requirement for Megapack energy storage systems in the U.S. Despite these ambitions, Potter cautions that fully insulating the U.S. supply chain from China within two years is infeasible. Yet, with the Trump administration hammering on reducing foreign dependence and boosting domestic manufacturing, Tesla's proactive roadmap could pay off long?term. Investors should care because Tesla's in?house battery strategy targets a major cost and supply?chain vulnerabilitypotentially lowering costs and securing critical materials as geopolitical pressures rise. With Tesla's next Battery Day anticipated later this year, markets will watch for updates on its DBE scaling and LFP capacity milestones. That said, Tesla is facing a mixed outlook, with a 12-month price target of $289.20about 16% below current levels, according to GuruFocus. While some analysts see potential upside to $500, the bearish end plunges dramatically to $19.10. That wide gap signals deep uncertainty around Tesla's execution, demand trends, and competitive pressures heading into 2026. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tesla director finally buys shares after more than 5 years—only to see his own board chair promptly sell $32 million in stock
Tesla chair Robyn Denholm has now liquidated roughly $150 million in shares since early December, dwarfing the $1 million open market purchase by director Joe Gebbia. "It has become a running joke that insiders only sell, never buy the stock,' wrote Electrek, an EV motoring news publication critical of CEO Elon Musk. Denholm's three-year term is set to end in about 12 months time. It's been more than five years, but a Tesla insider has finally invested his own money to buy the company's shares on the open market. The $1 million paid by independent boardroom director Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of AirBnB, was a drop in the bucket next to a board otherwise renowned for cashing in its shares. Yet fans of the brand hailed the open market purchase as a sign of confidence the upcoming robotaxi pilot so vital to its equity story will prove a success while the 'unexpected bumps this year' that CEO Elon Musk warned of last week would be a minor inconvenience. Within 24 hours, however, Tesla's chair Robyn Denholm unloaded another $32 million-plus tranche to add to her recent string of stock sales under her 10b5-1 trading plan, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday. That means investors' chief independent delegate to the board has now unloaded nearly $150 million in stock since early December. Prior to Gebbia, the last Tesla insider to demonstrate his faith in the company's future was Elon Musk. The CEO bought stock late in 2018 during a period when the company was plagued with production problems around the Model 3 and nearly went bankrupt. 'For Tesla, it has become a running joke that insiders only sell, never buy the stock,' Fred Lambert, the editor-in-chief of EV motoring site Electrek and fan-turned-critic of Musk, wrote on Tuesday. Denholm, whose term expires in about 12 months, is a controversial figure in the Tesla investor community over her approach to handling Musk, which has been broadly described as hands-off. Both supporters and detractors point to the same evidence to support their argument that she gives her CEO all the freedom he desires to act as he sees fit. Initially this proved to be a wild success. During the first year of the pandemic, when the government showered Americans with stimulus checks, shares in Tesla gained tenfold their value, rising from $29 to roughly $290. Business boomed, with the Model Y that launched that year going on to become the best-selling car of any kind worldwide just three years later — despite its relatively high price. But the success didn't last, with annual vehicle sales declining last year for the very first time since the Y's launch revolutionized the company. Its 2.1% quarterly operating profit margin plumbed a low not seen since mid-2019, with much of the blame being placed on Musk. Instead of developing an all new low-cost entry model for $25,000 as he had originally promised five years ago during Battery Day, the CEO focused instead on launching the troubled Cybertruck. When Cybertruck sales disappointed, he began re-positioning the company as a leader in the fledgling market of real world AI with his upcoming CyberCab robotaxi and Optimus droid. Meanwhile he has alienated many veteran Tesla customers with his emphatic support for the current White House administration of Donald Trump, whose popular support at this point is the lowest on record of any presidency in 80 years. Denholm, who briefly emerged last year to fight for her CEO's pay package, has kept to the background during this process even in the face of investors asking her to intervene. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Forbes
27-04-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
Tesla Set To Make ‘Cheaper' Models In June – May Be Knockoff Of Model 3 Or Model Y
The affordable Tesla has been coming for a long time. But now, Tesla's CFO has put a stake in the ground and said June. The idea for a $25,000 Tesla was first mentioned in 2018 by CEO Elon Musk. He said at that time it's 'something we can do in three years." He pushed the timeline out at Tesla's Battery Day event in September of 2020, when he announced plans for a $25,000 electric vehicle that would be 'fully autonomous' and doable within three years. Anyway, you get the idea. A more affordable model has always been a few years away. Now cheaper Teslas appear to be only a couple of months away. 'We're still focused on bringing cheaper models to market soon,' said Tesla chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja during the first quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday. 'The start of production is still planned for June,' he said. But Taneja also seemed to be tempering expectations. "There's always limitations when you're using existing lines as to how many different form factors [we can do] The upshot: don't expect a radically new design. 'The models that come out in the next months will be built on our lines and will resemble in form and shape the cars we currently make,' said Lars Moravy, Vice President of Vehicle Engineering during the earnings call on Tuesday. 'The key is that they'll be affordable and you'll be able to buy one,' he said. But Moravy was cautious too. 'As with all launches, we're working through like the last-minute issues that pop up,' he said. "We're knocking them down one by one. At this point, I would say that ramp maybe -- might be a little slower than we had hoped initially," he said. A 24 month lease on a Rear-Wheel Drive Model 3 is $349 with $0 down and 10,000 miles a year. If Tesla can build an even more affordable EV than the Model 3 with minimal compromise, the car could sell in the kind of volume the company needs to keep growing. 'Our intent is not to make a car that is any worse than any car we've ever produced in the past," said Moravy on Tuesday. Tesla is having a tough time right now. In the first quarter, the company posted its worst results in four years. Revenue in Tesla's core automotive business plunged 20% year-over-year, declining to $14 billion, the weakest since the third quarter of 2021. And Tuesday's results follow Tesla's weaker than expected Q1 vehicle deliveries – posted earlier this month – when the company said it delivered 337,000 vehicles during the quarter, its worst vehicle delivery growth since 2022 and coming in 17% below consensus analyst delivery forecasts. Tesla may be trying to get out in front of a global push for low-cost EVs, particularly in China, the largest EV market in the world. The BYD Seagull has been sold in China since 2023, priced between $10,000 and $11,000. BYD also sells the Dolphin hatchback in China starting at around $11,000. In the U.S. the Slate Truck was revealed from U.S.-based startup Slate Thursday in Long Beach, Calif., with the company promising that the first trucks would be available for under $20,000 (but note that's with the federal EV tax credit) by the end of 2026.
