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Tesla's battery acquisitions are paying off in spades, and giving rivals a lot of pain
There was a time, not too long ago, when Tesla skeptics questioned the company’s focus in designing and producing its own batteries with a dedicated partner like Panasonic and a facility like Gigafactory 1 in Nevada. Batteries, after all, are available off-the-shelf from companies like LG Chem, and it seemed pretty futile for Tesla to insist that it needs its own battery supply for its future business.
Fast forward to 2020, and Tesla’s extreme focus on battery development is paying off in spades. Over the years, Tesla has acquired multiple companies that have, in some way, enabled the company to accelerate or improve its products’ batteries. Included among these are Grohmann Automation, whose machines are the bread and butter in Gigafactory 1, Maxwell Technologies, and more recently, HIBAR systems.
At this point, Tesla’s batteries have pretty much become the gold standard for EVs, and the company appears to be well on its way towards releasing vehicles that have a range of 400 miles or more. The Plaid Model S and X will likely be the first of these, as well as the next-gen Roadster, which will have 620 miles of range. Even the reasonably-priced Cybertruck tops out at over 500 miles of range per charge. Massive battery developments are needed to achieve these, and Tesla seems to have done it, or at least is well on its way.
This does not appear to be true for other OEMs attempting to enter the electric vehicle market. As veteran companies unveiled their EVs, and as none have really managed to hold a candle to Tesla’s flagship Model S in terms of range, it is becoming evident that the electric car maker’s investments in batteries may have actually been the right strategy all along. Daimler, for one, seems to be feeling this inconvenient truth, with works council chief Michael Brecht explaining during a recent interview with Manager Magazin that Tesla’s battery-related acquisitions are actually having an effect on Germany’s EV efforts.
Daimler launched its first EV, the Mercedes-Benz EQC, in 2018, and it has not really lived up to the hype. Despite being dubbed at some point as a potential “Tesla Killer” due to its pedigree and excellent German build quality, the all-electric SUV has faced battery shortages and low sales. Registrations in Germany for the vehicle only show about 55 units sold to date despite all the ad campaigns dedicated to the SUV. Battery supply shortages have also forced Daimler to cut the annual production target of the EQC by 50% from 60,000 to just 30,000.
Quite interestingly, Brecht partly blames Tesla for some of the challenges facing the EQC today. Explaining his points to the publication, he argued that one of the reasons Daimler is struggling with battery demand is because Tesla bought Grohmann Engineering, which has valuable technology that could be used for battery-related developments and activities. Brecht also mentioned that Grohmann was actually hired by Mercedes-Benz to build up its own battery manufacturing capacity.
Brecht’s statements are notable since it is quite rare to see a veteran car manufacturer actually point the finger at Tesla to explain the dire condition of its own EV program. One can only hope that perhaps, the EQC would be a lesson that Daimler could learn from. After all, Daimler, among German automakers, would likely have no issues tapping into Tesla’s established technologies, batteries and powertrains alike, as the two companies have already worked together in the past. Elon Musk has stated that eventually, Tesla may be open to selling its batteries and powertrains with other OEMs. If this were to happen, it would be wise for Daimler to wait right in front of the line to avoid another EQC-sized flop.
Tesla engineers deflected calls from Apple on a daily basis while the tech giant was developing its now-defunct electric vehicle program, which was known as “Project Titan.”
Back in 2022 and 2023, Apple was developing an EV in a top-secret internal fashion, hoping to launch it by 2028 with a fully autonomous driving suite.
However, Apple bailed on the project in early 2024, as Project Titan abandoned the project in an email to over 2,000 employees. The company had backtracked its expectations for the vehicle on several occasions, initially hoping to launch it with no human driving controls and only with an autonomous driving suite.
Apple canceling its EV has drawn a wide array of reactions across tech
It then planned for a 2028 launch with “limited autonomous driving.” But it seemed to be a bit of a concession at that point; Apple was not prepared to take on industry giants like Tesla.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives noted in a communication to investors that, “The writing was on the wall for Apple with a much different EV landscape forming that would have made this an uphill battle. Most of these Project Titan engineers are now all focused on AI at Apple, which is the right move.”
Apple did all it could to develop a competitive EV that would attract car buyers, including attempting to poach top talent from Tesla.
In a new podcast interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it was revealed that Apple had been calling Tesla engineers nonstop during its development of the now-defunct project. Musk said the engineers “just unplugged their phones.”
Musk said in full:
“They were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls. Engineers just unplugged their phones. Their opening offer without any interview would be double the compensation at Tesla.”
Interestingly, Apple had acquired some ex-Tesla employees for its project, like Senior Director of Engineering Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, who eventually left for Archer Aviation.
Tesla took no legal action against Apple for attempting to poach its employees, as it has with other companies. It came after EV rival Rivian in mid-2020, after stating an “alarming pattern” of poaching employees was noticed.
There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.
However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.
To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.
Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI
Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:
“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”
Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”
It’s not impossible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2026
Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.
Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.
Elon Musk
Celebrating SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster launch, seven years later (Op-Ed)
Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
When Falcon Heavy lifted off in February 2018 with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as its payload, SpaceX was at a much different place. So was Tesla. It was unclear whether Falcon Heavy was feasible at all, and Tesla was in the depths of Model 3 production hell.
At the time, Tesla’s market capitalization hovered around $55–60 billion, an amount critics argued was already grossly overvalued. SpaceX, on the other hand, was an aggressive private launch provider known for taking risks that traditional aerospace companies avoided.
The Roadster launch was bold by design. Falcon Heavy’s maiden mission carried no paying payload, no government satellite, just a car drifting past Earth with David Bowie playing in the background. To many, it looked like a stunt. For Elon Musk and the SpaceX team, it was a bold statement: there should be some things in the world that simply inspire people.
Inspire it did, and seven years later, SpaceX and Tesla’s results speak for themselves.
Today, Tesla is the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.54 trillion. The Model Y has become the best-selling car in the world by volume for three consecutive years, a scenario that would have sounded insane in 2018. Tesla has also pushed autonomy to a point where its vehicles can navigate complex real-world environments using vision alone.
And then there is Optimus. What began as a literal man in a suit has evolved into a humanoid robot program that Musk now describes as potential Von Neumann machines: systems capable of building civilizations beyond Earth. Whether that vision takes decades or less, one thing is evident: Tesla is no longer just a car company. It is positioning itself at the intersection of AI, robotics, and manufacturing.
SpaceX’s trajectory has been just as dramatic.
The Falcon 9 has become the undisputed workhorse of the global launch industry, having completed more than 600 missions to date. Of those, SpaceX has successfully landed a Falcon booster more than 560 times. The Falcon 9 flies more often than all other active launch vehicles combined, routinely lifting off multiple times per week.
Falcon 9 has ferried astronauts to and from the International Space Station via Crew Dragon, restored U.S. human spaceflight capability, and even stepped in to safely return NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams when circumstances demanded it.
Starlink, once a controversial idea, now dominates the satellite communications industry, providing broadband connectivity across the globe and reshaping how space-based networks are deployed. SpaceX itself, following its merger with xAI, is now valued at roughly $1.25 trillion and is widely expected to pursue what could become the largest IPO in history.
And then there is Starship, Elon Musk’s fully reusable launch system designed not just to reach orbit, but to make humans multiplanetary. In 2018, the idea was still aspirational. Today, it is under active development, flight-tested in public view, and central to NASA’s future lunar plans.
In hindsight, Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster was never really about a car in space. It was a signal that SpaceX and Tesla were willing to think bigger, move faster, and accept risks others wouldn’t.
The Roadster is still out there, orbiting the Sun. Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
Tesla engineers deflected calls from this tech giant’s now-defunct EV project
Tesla to a $100T market cap? Elon Musk’s response may shock you
