News
How Tesla Battery Day can silence critics once and for all
The hype surrounding Tesla’s Battery Day is very real. Enthusiasts and unknowns are talking about the potential findings that Elon Musk and his crew could unveil on September 22nd, and the event could make way for Tesla to become much larger than it already is. However, there is a good chance that the critics of the electric automaker will have little to say after the event, and if Tesla plays it right, it could be the beginning of the end of the Tesla FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) movement.
It is understandable to assume that Tesla doubters will always exist. Some companies that have the best intentions still have their haters, and that’s just human nature. While Tesla will always have people who will doubt its intentions as a company, Battery Day could be the proverbial duct tape over the lips of the most vocal skeptics.
Tesla still has work to do, and Battery Day’s total appeal comes down to whether the company can manage to live up to the hype. Many rumors are circulating around what Elon Musk could unveil at the event, some related to batteries, and some aren’t. But whatever happens, it really comes down to the “Wow” factor, and whether Tesla can manage to attain that with their findings and unveilings.
To me, the most significant thing Tesla could announce is price parity, and something that is relatively an extra is the possibility that Musk could unveil the Plaid Powertrain. But if the company really wants to make a mark, several things, in my opinion, have to be confronted during the event.
Million-Mile Battery
Tesla’s Million-Mile Battery is almost certainly the most confirmed element of Battery Day. Developments from Jeff Dahn and his team of researchers have come up big for Tesla recently with electrolyte solutions and new studies that show revolutionary energy density measures. Reports across the globe have essentially confirmed that Tesla will unveil this development at the event, and it will be a big win for the electric automaker.
Having a battery that will last as long as two or three vehicle chassis means that when the increased longevity is combined with increasing production, Tesla will have a relatively large-scale supply of batteries available at their disposal. This opens the doors for many things, including price parity and the possibility of becoming a supplier for other electric car companies.
Price Parity…or close to it
Price parity with gas cars wouldn’t only be monumental for Tesla, but for EVs in general. It would prove that gas cars are not always going to be the most economical option for drivers, and the price of battery-powered cars would drop. Having Tesla announce price parity or something close would mean the premium EV brand would have the most affordable vehicles in terms of EV tech and range. It could mean the company’s growth may accelerate much quicker than initially anticipated. If the cars are cheaper, a lot of people will buy them, obviously. While $35,000 is reasonable for the Model 3 Standard Range, many people still are unwilling to spend that much on any car.
Getting the price of batteries down would literally begin the destruction of legacy automakers as if it hasn’t already started. Tesla being the best EV brand and having the best prices per kWh would be so massive, I don’t think many people can begin to fathom the possibilities.
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Status as a cell supplier for other companies
If Tesla can figure out price parity and long lifespan battery cells, the company will be well on its way to becoming a battery supplier. Long term battery life, combined with affordability, will be a big plus for Tesla’s plans to become a supplier for other EV brands. Having cheap batteries that are high-quality and offer an extended lifespan will be a no brainer. Tesla’s most notable competitors will be forced to source their cells from the Silicon Valley-based company.
Plaid Powertrain for the Model S
The Plaid Powertrain has been highly-anticipated for about a year, and there is a good chance Tesla unveils it at Battery Day. It seems that the issue with putting it into production last year was along the same lines as putting the Semi into production too early: battery shortages. The Plaid Powertrain will have a larger pack, meaning more cells, and putting it on Tesla’s menu too early would have spoiled their plans for the cars that are more crucial to the future of the company. The Model 3 is an excellent example of this. It’s a mass-market car, and the batteries should go toward these efforts instead of a sedan that has increased performance.
The Semi was not put into production because battery cells were not plentiful enough. Creating the Semi and fulfilling the preorders that the company had would have been troublesome for Tesla’s mass-market vehicle push, and it certainly wouldn’t have been the smartest strategy. However, Musk said that a “volume production” push of the Semi needed to occur soon, which basically confirms that the shortage is no longer an issue. The Plaid Powertrain will likely be the next piece of Tesla’s puzzle to be announced.
Is there the possibility that Tesla will shock us with something completely unexpected?
Of course, we’re talking about Elon Musk. The guy that unveiled the next-Gen Roadster as a surprise and the guy that rolled off a Cyberquad after the Cybertruck unveiling. While those are just a vehicle and a four-wheeler, we’re talking about Tesla’s most anticipated event, perhaps ever. There is a lot of potential for groundbreaking announcements next Tuesday, and there is no shortage of things that Musk could announce.
He has said on numerous occasions that Battery Day is going to be insanity and that it will likely blow a lot of minds. But what will transpire exactly, only a few people really know, and there is little sense in trying to guess what Musk will have for us on September 22nd.
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Elon Musk
Tesla FSD takes owner on a 20,000+ mile joy ride
Tesla owner David Moss just pushed his intervention free FSD streak past 20,000 miles total.
Tesla Model 3 owner David Moss has spent the better part of eight months turning his vehicle into a rolling stress test for Full Self-Driving, and this week he pushed his single, continuous FSD streak past 20,000 miles without a human intervening.
Moss, a Tacoma, Washington resident who sells LiDAR scanning equipment for a living, first drew wide attention in December 2025 when he logged 10,000 consecutive miles on FSD v14.2. Days later he drove from the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, covering 2,732 miles in two days and 20 hours with zero disengagements, the first verified coast to coast autonomous drive in Tesla’s history. Tesla even featured the trip as an official customer story in March. That original streak eventually reached 12,961 miles across 30 states before ending in rural Wisconsin in January, when snow and single digit temperatures forced Moss to take over.
Tesla FSD successfully completes full coast-to-coast drive with zero interventions
He started over, and this run has gone further. In late May, Moss drove 3,760 miles across Canada with two companions, from Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver to a Tesla showroom in Halifax, again without a single intervention, a trip Tesla AI software VP Ashok Elluswamy publicly congratulated him for on X. In June, he pushed the same unbroken streak south, aiming to link the Canadian border to the Mexican border, and crossed 10,000 miles on Tesla’s newly added in car streak counter along the way, the first driver to do so since Tesla began showing confetti animations for the feature.
20,000 Mile Tesla FSD Screen Streak!
Special thank you to @DevinOlsenn, @scotsrule08, & @OwenSparks for helping co drive during all these fun adventures these last couple of months
Also thank you to @wholemars for always tracking me along the journey verifying it all with his… pic.twitter.com/CZ2yO6Ev0X
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) July 27, 2026
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It’s worth noting that every mile is logged through the FSD Database, a community run tracker built by Tesla influencer Omar Qazi, well known as @WholeMars on X, that pulls telemetry straight from the car and records disengagements down to a tenth of a mile. That verification is what separates Moss’s numbers from casual claims on social media.
The streak itself is a fairly recent addition to Tesla’s software. FSD v14.2 introduced a Self Driving Stats panel tracking the ratio of autonomous to manual miles, and v14.3.4 added the live streak counter in June, which resets the moment a driver brakes, wrenches the wheel or cancels navigation. Reaching 20,000 miles on that counter means a single Tesla drove itself through countless highways, city grids, construction zones and Supercharger stalls without a single reset.
Moss has said the goal was never to set a record for its own sake, but to show, mile by verified mile, what the software can already do.
Elon Musk told The Economist that artificial intelligence will likely surpass the combined intelligence of every human on Earth within about five years, and that humans may not remain in charge once that happens. In a wide-ranging interview with editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, recorded at Giga Texas for the outlet’s Insider series, Musk compared the widening gap between AI and human intelligence to the gap between humans and chimpanzees.
“It’s hard to imagine that the chimpanzee would be in charge,” he said, addressing what happens to human authority once AI moves far beyond us.
Elon Musk reiterates his most optimistic prediction yet with “UHI” forecast
Musk’s timeline stretches out from there. Five years for AI to out-think humanity combined, ten years before humans lose meaningful control, and by 2036, he says, money itself may stop mattering.
Musk notes that if robots and AI produce more goods and services than people could ever consume, currency loses its purpose. He told Beddoes that governments could respond with direct payments, what he called “universal high income,” a term he first used in an X post last August describing a future where “everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport and everything else.”
There will be universal high income (not merely basic income).
Everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport and everything else.
Sustainable abundance.
-— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 24, 2025
He also floated a more surprising prediction that deflation, and not inflation, would become the bigger economic problem, since expanding the supply of goods and services faster than the money supply grows would push prices down rather than up.
None of this is new territory for Musk, who has spent years describing an “age of abundance” built on Optimus and autonomous vehicles. What’s notable is the timing. The interview landed the same week Tesla shares dropped roughly 19 percent following a second quarter earnings report that beat on revenue but missed badly on profit, and as SpaceX stock continues to slide from its post-IPO peak.
Musk’s own net worth has fallen close to $700 billion since mid-June, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, even as he describes a future where personal wealth stops being the point.
Musk did not dodge the risk side of the equation either. He put the odds of AI contributing to human extinction somewhere in the 10 to 20 percent range, then arrived at what he called his “philosophical conclusion” since the technology cannot realistically be stopped and the arguably better response is to keep building it and hope the outcome leans toward abundance rather than catastrophe. “I’ve gone from exhilaration to terror regarding AI,” he told Beddoes, “even intraday.”
Tesla is adding a new “Traction Control Modes” feature to its cars for better handling in any conditions. These features will roll out to the Model 3 and Model Y, the two vehicles in Tesla’s lineup that typically do not have drive modes for various conditions.
Tesla did include this in the Model S and Model X, as well as the Cybertruck.
The new feature will roll out with the 2026 Summer Update, which Tesla announced last week and subsequently started rolling out to some owners today. The Summer Update is the latest iteration of the usual four seasonal releases the company rolls out throughout the year. These releases typically feature some owner-requested features, as well as improvements to things like the Full Self-Driving suite.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
This release is no different. Among the changes are improvements to Navigation, new customization options with wraps and how they can be shared and stored, more functionality with the Tesla smartphone app, and new gamification with self-driving.
However, Tesla announced today that it was adding another feature to the Summer Update. Traction Control Modes will now be available with the release
Tesla describes them:
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“Choose from three updated Traction Control Modes: Auto for normal driving conditions, Slippery Surface for icy or wet roads, Stuck Assist when stuck in snow, mud, or sand. The mode resets to Auto at the start of each drive. To select, go to Controls > Dynamics > Traction Control Mode.”
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update also includes new Traction Control Modes
📸: @PatchesHQ https://t.co/N9cD2lGP14 pic.twitter.com/ogLC5ROIgc
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 26, 2026
The use of these modes will help improve a Tesla’s overall performance in less-than-ideal conditions. Typically, these traction control modes monitor wheel speed through sensors and track engine power to adjust responsiveness in various conditions.
These drive modes are not an ultimate solution to all driving conditions; just because there is a “Stuck Assist,” doesn’t mean your Tesla will dig itself out of a foot-and-a-half trench during a blizzard. It is important to remember that some of these scenarios also require some assistance from the driver. For example, driving in sand requires tires to be aired down significantly to increase traction and control.
However, this will be a welcome addition for those who use the Full Self-Driving suite and might not be convinced of its performance in adverse conditions. Some of us prefer to be in control in rain, snow, or ice, which is totally understandable. However, adjusting the Traction Control Mode while utilizing FSD in snow, rain, or ice could increase confidence and overall experience.
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Tesla’s Summer Update is already rolling out to some owners, so it should be making its way to most of the fleet over the next several weeks. The Spring Update rolled out at a very conservative pace, so if you don’t have it by the end of August, don’t be too upset. It might just be Tesla’s method.
Tesla FSD takes owner on a 20,000+ mile joy ride
Elon Musk explains what happens when AI outsmarts all of us
