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Tesla’s 4680 battery updates and $25K car development gets nod from analyst

Credit: Tesla/YouTube

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Tesla’s efforts to bring its 4680 battery cells to its upcoming products received a nod of approval from Mizuho Securities analyst Vijay Rakesh, who recently reiterated a “Buy” rating for the EV maker and an $820 per share price target. According to the analyst, the progress of Tesla’s 4680 battery program could very well be the key for the $25,000 EV, a project that’s far more ambitious than anything Tesla has attempted in the past. 

“A key to realizing the $25,000 EV, TSLA noted (that) its new 4680 battery is on track to achieve volume production in ’12-18 months’ in Berlin, with a 100 GWh 2022 target from its Battery Day announcement. TSLA also noted it expects capacity supply from partners LG/Panasonic to double next year,” the analyst noted

The Mizuho Securities analyst has a good point, considering that Tesla’s 4680 is poised to power the company’s next generation of vehicles. Far more powerful and cheaper to produce, the 4680 cells could play a significant part in closing the gap between electric cars like Teslas and their internal combustion-powered counterparts in raw cost. This is particularly important in the affordable sector, where vehicles are judged not as much on performance, but on cost and practicality instead. 

Tesla is already in the process of developing a $25,000 car, the first of which is expected to be unveiled in China in the near future. To ensure that such a vehicle could compete with equally formidable and affordable cars in the market, Tesla would have to use the best innovations that it has in its arsenal. On the battery front, these would be the 4680 cells. For its part, Tesla has highlighted that the rollout of the 4680 cells will be a collaborative effort on the part of the EV maker and its battery suppliers. 

“This is just a guess because we don’t know for sure, but it appears as though we’re about 12, probably not more than 18 months away from volume production of the 4680. Now at the same time, we are actually trying to have our cell supply of partners ramp up their supply as much as possible. So this is not something that is to the exclusion of suppliers.

“It is in conjunction with suppliers. So we want to be super clear about that. This is not about replacing suppliers. It is about supplementing the suppliers. So — and we have a very strong partnership with CATL, with Panasonic and LG — our request to our strategic partners for cell supply is, please supply us with as much as you possibly can. Provided the price is affordable, we will buy everything that they can make,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said

Don’t hesitate to contact us for news tips. Just send a message to tips@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Elon Musk gives a timeline for SpaceX’s first Starship catch attempt

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SpaceX Starship V3 from Starbase, Texas on April 14, 2026

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced today that the company will likely attempt to catch the Starship upper stage with its launch tower arms “in a few months.”

In a post on X, Musk wrote, “Looks like we will probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months. If there had been a tower out to sea where we practiced landing the ship, it would have been caught.” He added that the first reflight of a Starship vehicle is expected by the end of 2026 or early 2027, describing it as “a fork in the road of history for consciousness reaching the stars.”

Musk’s prediction comes amid ongoing progress toward full reusability of the Starship system, a two-stage rocket designed for rapid turnaround and dramatically lower launch costs. Catching the upper stage, known simply as “ship,” with the Mechazilla tower’s mechanical arms would mark a major milestone. It would allow both stages to return directly to the launch site for quick refurbishment and reuse, eliminating the need for ocean recovery.

Musk has previously signaled plans for a ship catch. In July, shortly after SpaceX’s wildly successful Starship 13 mission, he stated that the company would attempt to catch the ship with the tower on the next flight unless problems emerged in the mission data review. Earlier comments also outline conditions such as successful soft ocean landings before attempting a land recovery to minimize risk.

SpaceX has solved Starship’s biggest challenge, Elon Musk says

The latest update from Musk adjusts this timeline to a few months, reflecting the iterative nature of the test campaign.

SpaceX has already demonstrated the tower catch technique successfully with the Super Heavy booster on a couple of occasions. The first successful booster catch occurred during Flight 5 in October 2024, when the massive first stage returned to the Starbase pad in Texas and was plucked from the air by the tower arms.

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Additional catches followed on later flights, including Flight 7, proving the concept for the booster and building confidence in the system as a whole.

Achieving a similar catch for the upper stage would represent a significant step forward. The ship returns from much higher speeds and greater heat loads after orbital or near-orbital flight. Success would advance SpaceX’s goal of full and rapid reusability, potentially reducing the cost of access to orbit by a factor of 100 or more and supporting ambitions for frequent satellite deployments, lunar missions, and eventual Mars flights.

Musk has long emphasized that true reusability, refueling rather than discarding hardware, is essential for making humanity a multi-planetary species.

As SpaceX continues refining Starship through successive test flights, the coming months will test whether the ambitious catch timeline can be met. The combination of prior booster successes and improving ship landing precision suggests the company is steadily closing in on this historic capability.

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SpaceX achieves incredible milestone with Starlink program

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has achieved an incredible milestone by launching its 11,000th Starlink satellite into orbit.

This accomplishment occurred during the Starlink Group 17-50 mission, which lifted off on August 19 at 04:01 UTC from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

A Falcon 9 rocket carried 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites on this flight, successfully deploying them into low Earth orbit approximately one hour after liftoff. The first stage booster, identified as B1097 on its twelfth flight, landed successfully on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean.

According to tracking data compiled around that date, this deployment brought the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to just over 11,000.

The Starlink program began with test satellites known as Tintin A and B, launched on February 22, 2018. The first operational batch of 60 Starlink satellites followed on May 24, 2019, when a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Those initial satellites marked the start of a rapid expansion that has continued for more than seven years.

SpaceX has conducted hundreds of dedicated Starlink missions since then, routinely launching batches of 20 to 30 satellites at a time using reusable Falcon 9 rockets. By mid-2026, the company had already surpassed 12,000 total satellites launched across all versions, with continuous replacements for units that deorbit as designed to manage space debris.

Looking ahead, SpaceX continues to expand the Starlink constellation to enhance global broadband coverage, capacity, and speed. The network already serves millions of users across more than 160 countries and supports applications ranging from residential internet to maritime, aviation, and emergency services.

Future plans center on next-generation hardware, including larger V3 satellites capable of delivering substantially higher throughput, which require the increased payload capacity of the Starship vehicle currently under development and testing.

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In July, SpaceX submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission seeking authority for a Gen3 constellation of up to 100,000 satellites. These spacecraft would operate in very low Earth orbit shells at altitudes near 325 kilometers and 475 kilometers. The filing requests use of existing Ku, Ka, V, and E band spectrum along with new greenfield W and D band frequencies between 92 and 275 GHz.

SpaceX states that the expanded system aims to deliver multi-gigabit symmetrical broadband to consumers, enterprises, governments, and billions of AI-powered devices worldwide while handling a majority of global internet traffic. Approval and subsequent deployment would depend on regulatory review and the operational readiness of Starship for high-volume launches.

This ambitious scale reflects SpaceX’s ongoing commitment to providing ubiquitous high-speed connectivity from space.

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Tesla is opening Cybercab rides to a select few

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has opened a new sweepstakes to allow the public to be among the first to take an initial ride in a Cybercab. This all-electric, steering-wheel-less, pedal-less vehicle is the centerpiece of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, Robotaxi.

There are two ways Tesla fans can get to Austin to take part in the first public rides of the Cybercab: by riding on the Robotaxi platform by August 23, or by mailing a very specific entry to their Headquarters at Gigafactory Texas.

Tesla announced the latter portion of the sweepstakes last night:

Tesla will give one entry into the sweepstakes if you mail a 3″ by 5″ piece of paper with your full name, mailing address, telephone number, email address, and date of birth to their address:

Tesla, Robotaxi Sweeps Event

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1 Tesla Road,

Austin, TX 78725

There is a limit of one entry per stamped envelope. You can send as many as you’d like, but they must be in separate envelopes.

The company’s unique strategy to give people the opportunity to ride in a Cybercab before pretty much anyone else outside of the company is a hilarious but spot-on representation of how Tesla operates. In classic fashion, they had the perfect response to the event:

Cybercab will launch later this month, it appears, especially as it plans to announce the winners of the sweepstakes on August 25. The car has already been operating internally, as employees have been able to utilize the Cybercab for rides in some capacity, something it announced earlier this month.

Tesla weirdly confirms Cybercab employee rides, a huge milestone

Moving forward, the big goal is to get Cybercab out on the roads and integrated into the public Robotaxi fleet, one that will pick up real-world ride-hailers and give them a ride from Point A to Point B.

No matter which way you cut it, it appears Tesla is close to putting a vehicle with no steering wheel and no pedals on the road to help people travel autonomously.

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You can ride along with us in our first Cybercab ride from the We, Robot event in October 2024. The video is embedded below:

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