Latest news with #Megapack
Mint
22-07-2025
- Automotive
- Mint
Battery makers in slumping EV business find lifeline elsewhere
Big U.S. EV battery makers are stepping back from the market that got them started and betting on a new set of customers in an entirely different business. Instead of carmakers, these companies have started making batteries for utilities, wind- and solar-power developers, and massive data centers that train artificial intelligence. Selling large, stationary batteries for 'energy storage systems," or ESS, used to be a niche market that wasn't worth much attention, said Jaehong Park, an executive at the battery arm of South Korean conglomerate LG. 'ESS was the ugly duckling for a long time within our organization," Park said. Five years ago, automakers and battery companies raced to build multibillion-dollar electric-vehicle battery plants across the U.S. South and Midwest, based on EV forecasts that proved too optimistic. Now, many of these plants are underused, delayed or stuck in limbo. Energy storage has emerged as an alternative, helping to compensate for the slowdown in electric vehicles. Tesla generates billions of sales from batteries for energy storage. Revenue from the storage segment, which also includes solar panels, grew 67% last year to $4 billion, partially offsetting a $6 billion fall in revenue from EV sales. Some of Tesla's biggest customers for its Megapack battery systems are utility-scale energy providers such as Intersect, as well as Tesla chief Elon Musk's separate artificial-intelligence company, xAI. xAI purchased $191 million of Tesla Megapack products in 2024, according to financial disclosures. Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment. On Wednesday, General Motors said it is exploring an arrangement to supply energy-storage batteries to Redwood Materials, a startup company focused on battery recycling. Under the proposed deal, GM would supply Redwood with a mix of new and used GM batteries for large battery-storage systems. 'Right now, there is a hunger for more energy from every source," Redwood founder J.B. Straubel said. Other battery makers are also pivoting. A Chinese-owned battery manufacturer that had planned to supply Mercedes-Benz is now considering energy storage to help get a stalled factory in Kentucky back on track. This shift is in response to a turn in U.S. electricity demand, which is growing again after about 15 years of stagnating. Several factors driving that growth are artificial-intelligence data centers, manufacturing and broader electrification. Energy storage systems can help offset power outages and manage this extra demand on the power grid. Installations of energy-storage batteries more than tripled in the U.S. from 2021 to 2024 and are projected to grow 34% in 2025, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. 'If you have an outage of a massive data center or a giant gas plant, batteries can plug that hole," said Stephanie Smith, chief operating officer of Eolian, a battery and renewable-energy company owned by asset manager BlackRock. 'They can react in microseconds, and so you're able to address so many different problems on the entire grid." China has dominated the energy-storage battery market. Chinese manufacturers have spent decades honing the low-cost chemistry that works best for stationary batteries, said Sam Adham, a battery expert at CRU, a market-research firm. Even with the Trump administration's ratcheting of tariffs on Chinese imports, China is still often the lowest-cost option for storage batteries, he said. Now battery companies in the U.S. are trying to take on their Chinese battery unit, which co-owns EV battery factories with GM, Honda and Hyundai, became serious about diversifying its U.S. business in late 2023. The EV market was showing signs of softening, while the energy-storage business was heating up. At that time, the company was building out multiple battery plants around the U.S., and last year it decided to shift things around, in what one executive likened to playing Tetris with its footprint. A $1.4 billion expansion of its Holland, Mich., plant—originally planned for EV battery production—instead became LG's first U.S. facility dedicated to stationary storage batteries. It is using the same low-cost chemistry that Chinese companies have honed to dominate the business. 'We saw there is a rapid and urgently growing demand in the U.S. Here's an opportunity for us to address it more quickly," said Tristan Doherty, the company's chief product officer for storage batteries. The pivot put LG into the U.S. energy-storage business a year earlier than planned, he said. Even with the moves, the company's results were hit by the pullback in EVs, with sales shrinking 24% last year. It expects EV demand in the U.S. to fall 10% this year, and aims to slash its capital spending by as much as 30%. 'Rather than building new capacity on new sites, we do want to try to maximize and fully utilize the existing sites that we have as much as possible," Chief Financial Officer Chang Sil Lee said in January. Excelsior Energy Capital has signed an agreement to buy batteries from LG's new Michigan plant for its portfolio companies such as Lydian Energy, a utility-scale solar and battery developer. U.S.-made batteries ensure projects aren't thrown off course, said Anne Marie Denman, co-founder of Excelsior. 'We can look our buyers of power straight in the eye and say, 'This is a domestically sourced supply chain and we can commit to these timelines,' " she said. 'It isn't subject to geopolitical winds."
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla shakes automotive world with announcement regarding major US facility: 'Nearing completion'
Tesla is moving closer to opening its first lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery factory in the United States. The company recently posted a video on X of the factory, located in Sparks, Nevada. In the caption, Tesla said it is "nearing completion" of the facility, which Not a Tesla App reported will manufacture battery cells for Tesla energy projects such as Megapack and Powerwall. LFP batteries are growing in popularity, with manufacturing plants starting to pop up across the globe. Unlike other common batteries, LFPs don't use nickel or cobalt, which makes them lighter, less expensive, and less likely to catch fire. And because those metals don't need to be mined, producing LFP batteries is also a more eco-friendly process. Previous incarnations of LFP batteries weren't powerful enough to replace other battery types, but recent improvements have made them viable alternatives. Until now, Tesla has used Chinese suppliers for LFP battery cells. Plans for the Nevada factory were originally leaked in early 2024, and the company confirmed them during its first-quarter earnings call this year while also discussing the importance of energy storage to the company's future. "The importance of this business … is pretty profound," Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja said during that call. "In order for grids to work properly with the demands from AI, you need some more stability." Domestic production of LFP batteries has the potential to be a game-changer, not just for projects like Megapack and Powerwall, but also for electric vehicles. If battery costs come down significantly, cars will also become more affordable, which could put more EVs on the road instead of polluting, gas-powered vehicles. That would be welcome news for Tesla, which has seen its sales numbers drop significantly this year. The type of energy used to charge batteries can also have a huge impact on EV ownership costs. Using home-based solar energy, for example, is considerably cheaper than paying for energy from the grid or using public charging stations. To amplify those savings, EnergySage offers a free tool that enables consumers to compare quotes from local, verified solar panel installers while saving up to $10,000 on installation costs. Would you buy an EV if it only took 5 minutes to charge? Sign me up No way Depends on the cost Depends how much range it has Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. 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
18-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla shakes automotive world with announcement regarding major US facility: 'Nearing completion'
Tesla is moving closer to opening its first lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery factory in the United States. The company recently posted a video on X of the factory, located in Sparks, Nevada. In the caption, Tesla said it is "nearing completion" of the facility, which Not a Tesla App reported will manufacture battery cells for Tesla energy projects such as Megapack and Powerwall. LFP batteries are growing in popularity, with manufacturing plants starting to pop up across the globe. Unlike other common batteries, LFPs don't use nickel or cobalt, which makes them lighter, less expensive, and less likely to catch fire. And because those metals don't need to be mined, producing LFP batteries is also a more eco-friendly process. Previous incarnations of LFP batteries weren't powerful enough to replace other battery types, but recent improvements have made them viable alternatives. Until now, Tesla has used Chinese suppliers for LFP battery cells. Plans for the Nevada factory were originally leaked in early 2024, and the company confirmed them during its first-quarter earnings call this year while also discussing the importance of energy storage to the company's future. "The importance of this business … is pretty profound," Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja said during that call. "In order for grids to work properly with the demands from AI, you need some more stability." Domestic production of LFP batteries has the potential to be a game-changer, not just for projects like Megapack and Powerwall, but also for electric vehicles. If battery costs come down significantly, cars will also become more affordable, which could put more EVs on the road instead of polluting, gas-powered vehicles. That would be welcome news for Tesla, which has seen its sales numbers drop significantly this year. The type of energy used to charge batteries can also have a huge impact on EV ownership costs. Using home-based solar energy, for example, is considerably cheaper than paying for energy from the grid or using public charging stations. To amplify those savings, EnergySage offers a free tool that enables consumers to compare quotes from local, verified solar panel installers while saving up to $10,000 on installation costs. Would you buy an EV if it only took 5 minutes to charge? Sign me up No way Depends on the cost Depends how much range it has Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Mint
14-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
Elon Musk rules out merger but confirms Tesla investor vote on xAI investment
Tesla Inc. plans to poll shareholders on whether to invest in xAI, Elon Musk said after the Wall Street Journal reported SpaceX was prepared to funnel $2 billion into the Grok chatbot developer. The billionaire entrepreneur, responding to a post on X, said any decision to back the startup ultimately wasn't his to make. Musk asked X users publicly last year if Tesla should invest $5 billion in xAI, writing at the time that he was just testing the waters. But he said then that the EV maker's board and backers would need to green-light such a decision. Musk set up xAI in early 2023, months after OpenAI ushered in the AI boom with the launch of ChatGPT. It's since merged with the social media service X in a deal Musk said valued the AI startup at $80 billion and the social network company at $33 billion. That deal meant the X platform would come in handy to further distribute xAI products, while also providing a real-time feed of users' posts, screenshots and massive amounts of other data. Investments into xAI would help Grok better compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT by increasing capital toward research and development. The potential investments emerged as the combined entity xAI Holdings engages in talks to raise money at a valuation of as much as $200 billion, Bloomberg News has reported. They suggest Tesla's billionaire chief executive officer is seeking to more closely entwine the various parts of his corporate empire. This month, the CEO revealed Tesla will adopt Grok within vehicles — days after the bot posted antisemitic content on X. The integration suggests an expanded relationship between the two firms, something some Tesla investors have called for as EV sales have slumped. Tesla disclosed in April that xAI was a customer last year, with the startup incurring $198.3 million of expenses tied to commercial, consulting and support agreements with the carmaker. The bulk of that business — $191 million — involved xAI purchasing Tesla's utility-scale energy storage batteries, called Megapack. Responding to a user post on X asking Tesla investors if they supported a merger between the two companies, Musk on Monday replied "No." "If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago," Musk had said on X, having previously signaled that close ties between the companies could help advance Tesla's autonomous-driving ambitions. Tesla had last week said it was planning to hold its annual shareholder meeting on November 6, setting the date a day after a group of 27 investors pushed for it, citing legal obligations. (With inputs from agencies)
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Business Standard
14-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Musk suggests Tesla shareholders should vote on possible xAI investment
Tesla Inc. plans to poll shareholders on whether to invest in xAI, Elon Musk said after the Wall Street Journal reported SpaceX was prepared to funnel $2 billion into the Grok chatbot developer. The billionaire entrepreneur, responding to a post on X, said any decision to back the startup ultimately wasn't his to make. Musk asked X users publicly last year if Tesla should invest $5 billion in xAI, writing at the time that he was just testing the waters. But he said then that the EV maker's board and backers would need to green-light such a decision. It's not up to me. If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago. We will have a shareholder vote on the matter. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2025 The potential investments emerged as the combined entity XAI Holdings engages in talks to raise money at a valuation of as much as $200 billion, Bloomberg News has reported. They suggest Tesla's billionaire chief executive officer is seeking to more closely entwine the various parts of his corporate empire. This month, the CEO revealed Tesla will adopt Grok within vehicles — days after the bot posted antisemitic content on X. The integration suggests an expanded relationship between the two firms, something some Tesla investors have called for as EV sales have slumped. Tesla disclosed in April that xAI was a customer last year, with the startup incurring $198.3 million of expenses tied to commercial, consulting and support agreements with the carmaker. The bulk of that business — $191 million — involved xAI purchasing Tesla's utility-scale energy storage batteries, called Megapack.
