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Lucid Motors secures battery deal with Panasonic

Lucid Motors Gravity SUV. Credit: Lucid Motors

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Lucid Motors has signed a deal with Panasonic for the Japanese battery manufacturer to supply the automaker with batteries for its upcoming production ramp.

Lucid has struggled for most of 2022 as it battled supply shortages and an ever-more competitive EV market. Now, the company is moving to address at least one of those issues as they have signed a deal for battery cells with Panasonic. But the real winner might be the company selling shovels, not digging for gold.

Panasonic’s press release didn’t specify many details of the deal with Lucid Motors. Still, we know that the company will deliver batteries sometime in 2023. The batteries will come from Panasonic’s Osaka, Japan plant and its new De Soto, Kansas facility.

“Panasonic is a fantastic partner with both innovative technology and depth of experience,” said Peter Rawlinson, Lucid’s CEO and CTO. “This agreement will help us meet the growing demand for lithium-ion batteries as we continue to ramp production of the full Lucid Air line-up in 2023 and expect to begin production of our Gravity SUV in 2024.”

Hopefully, this increase in supply stability can combat what has been a turbulent year for Lucid Motors. Earlier this year, Lucid had to cut production estimates nearly in half due to supply shortages, meaning that they will only be able to produce between 6,000-7,000 units this year. And while this is obviously bad news for the over 37,000 reservation holders still waiting for the vehicles to be delivered, it might be worse for Lucid, who needs the cars to be sold to make any money.

On the other side of the deal, this is fantastic news for Panasonic as it has attempted to grow its market share in the battery industry. The company has undoubtedly been aided by the U.S. and Europe moving away from Chinese battery and computer chip suppliers, but this is no guarantee of success. Panasonic must compete with a flood of other battery manufacturers looking to capitalize on the same opportunity. This is at least one factor that led the company to open a new battery production facility in the U.S. in the first place.

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“With the increased electrification of the automotive market, partnerships with technology-leading EV manufacturers such as Lucid are critical to our mission,” said Kazuo Tadanobu, President and CEO of Panasonic Energy Co., Ltd. “This partnership will help us drive growth of the lithium-ion battery industry and accelerate the world towards a net-zero emissions future.”

Lucid needs a pretty dramatic turnaround from the problems of this year. Hopefully, the company’s new vehicle and its new deal with Panasonic can help make 2023 a better year for the EV startup, but it isn’t obvious if it will be.

What do you think of the article? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Shoot me an email at william@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @WilliamWritin. If you have news tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com!

Will is an auto enthusiast, a gear head, and an EV enthusiast above all. From racing, to industry data, to the most advanced EV tech on earth, he now covers it at Teslarati.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s AI Grok Bot can now handle banking while your Tesla FSD handles the road

Elon Musk says Grok Bot can manage your finances through linked bank and investment accounts.

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Concept of SuperGrok Bot handling banking in a Tesla via Grok
Concept of SuperGrok Bot handling banking in a Tesla via Grok

Grok Bot now wants access to your wallet, with SpaceXAI rolling out a new Finance integration for its agent platform that lets users link bank, credit card and investment accounts thereby letting their Bots help manage spending, investments and more. Elon Musk amplified the announcement on X with a short endorsement, “Grok Bot can manage your finances.”

The feature builds on two earlier steps. In early September, Grok gained the ability to answer questions about spending, savings, investments and cash flow using accounts connected through Plaid, starting with users in the U.S. Before that, on August 28, SpaceXAI let Grok Bot buy things online through Link, with users approving every spend request and the Bot receiving a single use card for each payment.

Musk has already shown how far he wants users to push it. In late August, when Tesla investor account Teslaconomics said he was weighing whether to give Grok Bot access to his bank accounts, Musk replied, “Try it out. If Grok Bot messes up, we will make you whole.” That promise goes beyond SpaceXAI’s consumer terms, which make users responsible for what their agents do and generally cap the company’s liability at the greater of fees paid or $100. SpaceXAI’s own documentation recommends requiring approval for purchases and financial transfers.

For Tesla owners, the update lands five days after Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles, letting drivers hand off errands by voice while FSD (Supervised) handles the road. Bot access inside the car is currently limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, though Connectors are open to anyone signed into Grok. With Finance linked, a driver could ask for a spending summary or a check on upcoming bills during the commute.

Grok’s role in the car has grown quickly since Tesla’s Summer Update let it control cabin features by voice. We have been using Grok Bot in our own Tesla for several weeks, and here’s how our latest test went.

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SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for

The FAA has cleared Starship Flight 14, setting up SpaceX’s first orbital attempt on Monday.

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SpaceX has cleared the last regulatory hurdle standing between Starship and its first trip to orbit. The Federal Aviation Administration issued the launch license for Starship Flight 14 late Saturday, keeping the mission on track for liftoff Monday, September 28, from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas.

The 75 minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central, and Boca Chica Beach closures are also scheduled for September 29 and 30 as backup dates. This will be Starship’s first revenue generating mission.

The license was the missing piece after SpaceX completed a full wet dress rehearsal with Booster 21 and Ship 41 on September 24. At the time, the company said the flight remained on track pending regulatory approval. Because Flight 14 flies an orbital profile, the FAA had to sign off on a modified license that met its safety, payload and financial responsibility requirements.

Observers combing through the new FAA paperwork also noticed that lightning no longer appears among Starship’s listed launch hazards. If that holds, it matters more for where Starship is headed than for Monday’s attempt. Florida and Louisiana, home to LC-39A and the planned Starbase Louisiana site, see some of the most frequent lightning in the United States.

SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit

Flight 14 is the mission SpaceX has been building toward for months. Ship 41 will carry 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational V3 units to be deployed, and attempt roughly six orbits at about 275 kilometers over a flight lasting just under 10 hours. SpaceX says the ship will only perform its orbital insertion burn after flight controllers confirm enough hardware redundancy remains for the deorbit burn at the end of the mission. Ship 41 is targeting a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile, while Super Heavy will return to the Gulf of Mexico.

The date carries some symbolism as well. A Monday launch would come 10 years and one day after Elon Musk first presented the Interplanetary Transport System, the design that became Starship, at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.

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SpaceX has not announced what comes next, but air traffic planning slides reported this week, list Flight 15 no earlier than October 19 and a first Starship launch from LC-39A in Florida no earlier than October 30. Both dates depend on how Monday goes.

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SpaceX completes another secret Pentagon launch, adding to suspected Starshield buildout

SpaceX launched the classified USSF-385 mission from Vandenberg, landing its booster on a tenth flight.

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US Golden Dome space defense system (Concept render by Grok)

SpaceX launched another classified mission for the U.S. Space Force from California early Saturday morning, and the Falcon 9 booster that carried it landed on a drone ship in the Pacific for the tenth time. The USSF-385 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 7:00 a.m. PT.

Booster B1100 touched down on Of Course I Still Love You roughly eight and a half minutes after liftoff. It was the booster’s tenth flight and tenth successful landing, following the NROL-95 national security mission and eight Starlink launches. Its previous flight, a Starlink Group 15 mission on August 22, came just 35 days earlier. SpaceX ended its livestream shortly after the landing, which is standard for classified payloads, and neither the company nor the Space Force has said what the rocket carried.

USSF-385 is the fourth Space Force launch from the same Vandenberg pad in roughly six weeks, following USSF-366 on August 15, USSF-153 on September 10, and USSF-259 on September 17. When SpaceX flew USSF-366 in August, independent trackers noted that the rocket’s stage drop zones matched SpaceX’s Starlink Group 15 missions, pointing to Starshield, the government version of the Starlink satellite bus. The Space Force later cataloged 23 satellites after both USSF-366 and USSF-153, while USSF-259 placed 17 satellites into a different orbital plane, per KeepTrack. Launch databases describe USSF-385 the same way, though the payload remains officially unidentified.

Starlink’s Starshield wins contract with US Space Force

The cadence lines up with the contracts, because in July, the Space Force awarded SpaceX $1.6 billion in task orders for 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg through the end of 2027. SpaceX also holds contracts to build pieces of that same network, which pushed its Pentagon contract total for 2026 past $8 billion.

Saturday’s flight was also the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg in September, according to Spaceflight Now, while only one Falcon 9 flew from the East Coast this month as SpaceX shifts its Florida infrastructure toward Starship. Launch trackers list it as SpaceX’s 112th mission of 2026 and the 108th Falcon 9 flight of the year, with SLC-4E turned around about six and a half days after its previous launch.

The West Coast pad will not stay quiet for long, considering SpaceX has another Starlink mission scheduled from SLC-4E on September 30. Meanwhile, in Texas, the company is two days away from Starship Flight 14, which is targeting Monday at 7:15 a.m. CT for the vehicle’s first attempt to reach orbit.

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