Mercedes-Benz is going all-electric starting in 2025, with plans to launch three electric-only architectures that year and install over 200 Gigawatt hours of battery cell capacity across eight factories.
Earlier today, Mercedes-Benz, a German automaker based in Stuttgart, announced its plan to be fully electric by the end of the decade. However, any newly launched architectures will be electric-only starting in 2025, the company said.
“Mercedes-Benz is getting ready to go all-electric by the end of the decade, where market conditions allow. Shifting from electric-first to electric-only, the world’s preeminent luxury car company is accelerating toward an emissions-free and software-driven future,” the company stated in a press release.
Mercedes EQS EV spied benchmarking against Tesla Model S and Model 3
Mercedes-Benz is just one of the many automakers that are now choosing to transition to fully electric lineups. As the dynamic of the automotive industry continues to work toward a transition to electric powertrains, more companies are announcing their plans to ditch combustion engines in favor of battery-powered cars. Lamborghini is one of the more notable car companies that has announced this strategy.
The market shift is most certainly the root cause of Mercedes’ decision to transition to a fully electric lineup in the coming years. “The EV shift is picking up speed – especially in the luxury segment, where Mercedes-Benz belongs,” Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG CEO Ola Källenius said. “The tipping point is getting closer, and we will be ready as markets switch to electric-only by the end of this decade.”
Electric automotive enthusiasts are often skeptical of legacy automakers and OEMs alike, especially when plans or announcements come out that indicate a long-time ICE giant is planning to transition to electrification. There needs to be more than an announcement to convince shareholders and skeptics of their plan. Mercedes has a comprehensive game plan put in place that will solidify its intentions to ditch ICE vehicles, and it starts with a massive investment into battery EVs, which totals over €40 billion ($47.089 billion). The automaker has broken down its plan into four parts: Technology, Production, People, and Financial.
The tech plan includes three new architectures: the MB-EA, the AMG.EA, and the VAN.EA. Each architecture will power a specific class of vehicles, from performance vehicles to medium and large passenger cars to light commercial vehicles.
The production plan outlines how Mercedes plans to transition to BEV manufacturing, including assistance from GROB, a German global leader in highly innovative battery production and automated systems. Mercedes said it also plans to install a new battery recycling factory in Kuppenheim, Germany, which will help develop and secure recycling capacity. This will be operational in 2023.
The people plan outlines the retraining and reskilling of current employees. This has already been started, as Mercedes-Benz said it has already trained about 20,000 employees in aspects of e-mobility.
Finally, the financial plan shows that the company will reallocate its capital from “EV-first” to “EV-only.” Mercedes-Benz writes:
“Investments into combustion engines and plug-in hybrid technologies will drop by 80% between 2019 and 2026. On this basis, Mercedes-Benz projects company margins in a BEV world which are similar to those in the ICE era.”
You can read Mercedes-Benz entire plan here.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.
Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.
But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:
“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”
Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.
Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”
Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value.
The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power and mass to space.
And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow.
But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2026
Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.
Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.
What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX’s biggest earnings test yet lands Tuesday, and Tesla shareholders should be watching
SpaceX reports earnings Tuesday as Wall Street watches AI spending, Starlink growth and Tesla merger
SpaceX reports third quarter results after the market closes Tuesday, with a webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET streamed on X, and Tesla follows a day later. Bloomberg consensus, cited by Pepperstone, calls for revenue of $12.89 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $6.62 billion and adjusted EPS near $0.15. That would be about 65% growth from the second quarter and SpaceX’s first profitable quarter since its IPO. Analysts expect roughly $6.4 billion from AI and $4.9 billion from Starlink, which is projected to reach 14.3 million consumer subscribers. Capital spending is forecast at $19.6 billion, leaving free cash flow near negative $11.6 billion.
The numbers matter because SpaceX has spent months trying to win over a skeptical market. It priced its record IPO at $135, spiked to $225.64, then sank near $105 in early August. Friday’s close of $146.03 sits about 28% below the June high. The Q2 report beat on revenue at $7.8 billion and put Starlink at 12 million subscribers, but $18.4 billion of capex hurt the stock. Since then SpaceX reached orbit on Starship Flight 14 with 26 Starlink V3 satellites, agreed to buy 800 MHz spectrum for about $8 billion as part of its Starlink Mobile push, and signed a fourth compute hosting deal in four months worth roughly $13 billion a year from December. Management is targeting more than 2 gigawatts of compute by year end and a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate. Evercore ISI, which raised its target to $275, said the quarter may be judged more on those targets than the reported figures
All of this sits under the Tesla merger question. Barclays analyst Dan Levy expects an all stock deal in which SpaceX buys Tesla at a premium, using reference values of $2.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, and said an announcement would need to come by late October or early November to be voted on at Tesla’s December 6 annual meeting. Barclays estimates Musk would hold about 37% of the combined company and 56% of the votes. Musk said in July that combining companies cannot be discussed on an earnings call, but an investor question asking when SpaceX will merge with Tesla is sitting on SpaceX’s Q&A platform, and Teslarati has tracked how the Roadster demo revived the talk.
If a deal happens, Tuesday’s result would effectively set the price Tesla holders would receive. Their shares would convert into SpaceX stock, along with exposure to a company with a heavy investment on AI, while Tesla itself expects 2026 capex above $25 billion. A strong quarter and calmer spending would make that exchange easier to sell. Another round of heavy capex and a falling stock would make it harder.