News
An inside look at Tesla’s P100D battery pack: more cells, 102 kWh capacity, backwards compatibility in mind
New details of Tesla’s mysterious P100D battery pack, which Tesla CTO JB Straubel once described as having notable changes in battery module and pack technology, and a “complete redo on the cooling architecture”, have emerged thanks to Jason Hughes’s latest project.
Hughes posted photos of a dismantled 100 kWh battery pack, which he obtained through the purchase of a salvaged Tesla P100D, that reveal an increase in the number of 18650 lithium-ion cells being packed within each battery module. Hughes also discovered a surprising increase in battery capacity beyond 100 kWh, and what appears to be a replaceable connector that allows Tesla to retrofit older vehicles with the newer battery pack.
More 18650 Battery Cells
As outlined in Hughes’s blog post, Tesla was able to fit more of its cylindrical 18650 lithium-ion battery cells into each of the 16 modules making up the P100D battery pack. It’s worth noting that Tesla has maintained a relatively similar form factor on battery packs produced for Model S and Model X vehicles since their introduction. Regardless of the vehicle’s model version – be it a P85, a 60, 75D, or 90D – the uniform skateboard design of the battery pack allows for ease of production, as Tesla can manufacture a single-style pack that can be installed across its fleet of vehicles. Under that same notion, Tesla has also been able to create ‘unlockable features’ by software limiting vehicle range depending on the option purchased by the customer. In other words, Tesla installs the same battery pack into like-kind vehicles (e.g. Model S 60 uses the same pack as Model S 75).

Tesla P85 battery pack module vs. P100D module [Credit: Jason Hughes via @wk057]
Hughes’s dissection of the P100D battery shows that Tesla leveraged the same design concept by distributing a total of 8,256 battery cells across the 16 modules making up the battery pack, bringing total capacity up to the advertised 100 kWh number. However, and much to Hughes’s surprise – he had previously criticized Tesla for providing less battery capacity than what’s perceived by way of the vehicle’s nameplate – Tesla actually provided 102.4 kWh of capacity on the P100D pack, representing a 2.4% increase over what’s marketed.
Backwards Compatible Design
Tesla has also, seemingly, taken into account the ability to retrofit new battery packs onto older vehicles by using the same high and low-voltage connectors across packs. According to Hughes, “the pack itself has the same high-voltage connection, the same low voltages connectors, and the same cooling connector.” However, Hughes notes that there’s subtle changes on the P100D pack that would require a new part in order for it to be retrofittable onto non-P100D vehicles.
“The [P100D] pack has the newer ring around the high-voltage connector. So, it’s plug-and-play (for the most part, firmware and config changes needed) on the Model X and refreshed Model S, however it would require a different spacer ring on the high voltage connector. Tesla even has a part number for it, so it should be pretty simple to put into any Model S/X.” says Hughes.
What about that new P100D battery cooling architecture?
Well. It’s not magic. Tesla did improve battery cooling in the new P100D 100 kWh battery pack. And Tesla did provide a redone architecture, but it isn’t one of mythical proportions.
Hughes reveals Tesla’s approach to improve battery pack cooling was to use shorter and thinner cooling loops per battery module, thereby improving the rate of heat dissipation. Unlike most other electric car makers who do not “prime” their vehicle’s batteries through the use of a thermal management system, Tesla pumps fluid through the battery module to regulate the temperature of its battery pack in order to bring them to optimal operating temperatures. By ensuring the lithium-ion cells operate within ideal temperatures, Tesla is able to provide the best performance possible, while ensuring cell longevity.

Tesla P100D battery module cooling loops [Credit: Jason Hughes]
Elon Musk
SpaceX just combined Grok, Cursor, and X into one mega plan
SpaceXSI merges Grok, Cursor, and X Premium into one plan, raising questions for Tesla owners.
SpaceX Super Intelligence has rolled out The X Subscription, a single plan that combines Grok, Grok Bot, Cursor, and X Premium.
There are five levels, including a free plan that includes daily Grok access and a starter allowance for Cursor’s coding agents. Plus is $8 per month, Premium is $30, Super is $100, and Ultra is $200. Usage scales as you move up, with Premium offering four times the Plus allowance, Super 15 times, and Ultra 50 times. Annual billing brings the prices down a bit further, with Premium at $300 per year.
We’ve unified plans across Grok, Cursor, and X Premium.
Introducing The X Subscription. https://t.co/SvkrVvBa0p
— SpaceX Super Intelligence (@SpaceXSI) October 12, 2026
The $30 Premium tier is where SpaceXSI says it packs the benefits of SuperGrok, Cursor Pro, and X Premium+, which previously added up to $90 per month. Grok Bot, the agent that handles tasks like ordering food or managing a calendar, is included from Premium upward but not on Plus. Paid plans share one weekly usage pool across Grok and Cursor, and each plan includes at least twice the coding usage of the comparable Cursor plan. Third party models in Cursor remain available on Premium and above, but they are billed separately at API list prices.
That last detail matters because of what has happened around Cursor this year. SpaceX exercised its option to buy the company for $60 billion in June, and the deal closed in August. Weeks later, OpenAI said it will cut Cursor’s access to its models on November 12. Bundling Cursor with Grok usage gives SpaceXSI a reason to steer developers toward its own models.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
For Tesla owners, the connection is Grok Bot. Tesla brought it into its vehicles last month, and at that point access inside the car was limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers. Grok Bot is now enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet. Neither SpaceXSI nor Tesla has said how the new plans change inside the car access for owners, or whether a $30 Premium subscription now covers Grok Bot in a personal Tesla. That is the question owners will want answered first.
The company is also changing its name along the way. The rollout follows the rebrand Musk announced on October 4, when he said SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI, and the plan page now carries that branding.
The X Subscription is available to new customers starting now, and SpaceXSI says it will reach everyone globally over the next few days. Existing SuperGrok, Cursor, and X Premium subscribers do not have to switch. The option to move will appear gradually in billing settings, with a prorated refund for the unused time on the old plan. Switching is permanent once the accounts are unified, and old plans are closed to new sign ups.
Energy
Taiwan power firm bets big on Tesla Megapacks as AI data center thirst grows
Taiwan’s Apollo Power orders 260 Tesla Megapacks, betting AI data centers will need more electricity.
A Taiwanese power company has ordered 260 Tesla Megapack 2XL units, roughly 1GWh of storage, betting that electricity rather than chips will decide how fast AI data centers come online. Apollo Power signed the contract with Tesla’s Taiwan energy arm on October 8, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan stock exchange.
The filing says the units are meant for behind the meter storage and resilient grid projects, with delivery in batches from the end of 2027 and sites operating in 2028. Apollo and Tesla did not disclose a price, citing a confidentiality agreement. Apollo plans to pay for the equipment through a cash capital increase and bank financing, and it noted the purchase is not revenue and does not mean it holds firm orders from its partners.
Biggo reported that only about 33 units are under signed customer contracts, with roughly 150 more in negotiation. The same report put total project investment near NT$130 billion, but that figure includes installation work, with the equipment itself making up about 40 to 50 percent. In other words, a large share of this order is Apollo reserving supply ahead of demand. Apollo’s chairman told local media global large storage supply is tight, which is why the company locked in the units early, according to Yahoo Taiwan Finance.
Apollo also launched an AI data center and grid resilience alliance with Phison, Gigabyte and Shihlin Electric. The pitch rests on a pilot at Phison’s Zhunan plant, where Apollo and Tesla Energy Taiwan installed grid forming Megapack 2XLs in June. Tesla Energy Taiwan general manager Sun Hsiao-Han said the project went from demo to 1GWh in four months, and that Tesla Energy has deployed more than 50GWh worldwide.
Taiwan’s cabinet has approved amendments that would require large energy users to install their own generation and storage, which gives enterprise storage a regulatory tailwind.
The deal fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked. Tesla’s Megablock targets 1GWh commissioned in 20 business days, a pitch aimed squarely at fast moving data center builds. Megapacks already back xAI’s Colossus in Memphis and a 400MW AI campus in Brazil. Sun Media adds that Megapack 2XL was named among the first products in Nvidia’s DSX Ready qualification for battery storage in AI factories.
Deliveries are more than a year away, so the real test is how much of that 260 unit order turns into signed customer contracts.
Lifestyle
Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi’s real advantage won’t be the ride service
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
