News
Tesla’s battery strategy has “no advantage,” Ford CEO says
Tesla’s battery strategy will not be adopted by legacy automotive company Ford, because Jim Hackett, the company’s CEO, says there is “no advantage” in migrating capital into owning a cell manufacturing facility.
During Ford’s Q2 2020 Earnings Call in late July, Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas asked about the company’s strategy to produce EV batteries in-house, as opposed to sourcing the cells from third-party companies like Panasonic and LG Chem.
Hackett, who elected to retire from his post as head of Ford earlier this year, stated that his team did a “deep dive” on whether it was advantageous to create its own battery cells.
It proved not to be advantageous for Ford.
“I’ve met with a number of the people that you know that are in the supply side of this. And it was our estimation, in fact, our whole team went through a really deep dive on this six months ago, that the supply chain has ramped up since Elon built his Gigafactory,” Hackett said. “And so there’s plenty there that does not warrant us to migrate our capital into owning our own factory. There’s no advantage in the ownership in terms of cost or sourcing as what Ford can draw on.”
Instead, the company will continue to go the path that it is now, which requires sourcing batteries from third-party suppliers instead of researching and improving on cells within the company’s facilities across the world.
Interestingly enough, Tesla has found tremendous advantages in producing its own batteries at its Giga Nevada facility, which is responsible for assembling battery packs with the help of Panasonic.
Forbes stated that a Trefis analysis from January 2020 showed that battery costs fell by 45% from 2016 to 2019, which effectively decreased the price of Tesla’s vehicles by $7,000 on average.
Despite this, Ford isn’t budging, and the company’s executives don’t believe they require a battery plant at the current time.
Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s Head of Product Development and Purchasing, stated that the company would need to manufacture between 100,000 and 150,000 electric vehicles a year to justify a battery production facility, Automotive News reported.
“We don’t have that volume initially to justify that capital expenditure,” Thai-Tang said. “There’s insufficient scale for any one OEM, other than somebody who’s a full-line battery-electric manufacturer like Tesla, to justify that spending.”
Thai-Tang’s statement indicates that there is a possibility that Ford could change its mind about battery production in the future. Still, the company will have to increase the production of its electrified lineup. For now, he is okay with buying batteries from suppliers.
“It gives us the ability to access the latest technology and innovation across multiple suppliers,” he said.
Tesla, however, is thriving by developing its battery technology. Many Wall Street analysts contribute the company’s cell strategy as a primary reason for its success, which has been exponential so far this year for investors.
Ford is still fine-tuning its EV project and is planning to release a fleet of forty electric cars by 2023 by spending $11 billion by 2022 to develop the technology required to be competitive in the quickly-growing sector.
Cybertruck
Tesla drops latest hint that new Cybertruck trim is selling like hotcakes
According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:
Tesla’s new Cybertruck offering has had its delivery date pushed back once again. This is now the second time, and deliveries for the newest orders are now pushed well into 2027.
According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:
🚨 Tesla has updated the $59,990 Cybertruck Dual Motor AWD’s estimated delivery date to April 2027.
First deliveries are still slated for June, but if you order it now, you’ll be waiting over a year.
Demand appears to be off the charts for the new Cybertruck and consumers are… pic.twitter.com/raDCCeC0zP
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 26, 2026
Just three days ago, the initial delivery date of June 2026 was pushed back to early Fall, and now, that date has officially moved to April 2027.
The fact that Tesla has had to push back deliveries once again proves one of two things: either Tesla has slow production plans for the new Cybertruck trim, or demand is off the charts.
Judging by how Tesla is already planning to raise the price based on demand in just a few days, it seems like the company knows it is giving a tremendous deal on this spec of Cybertruck, and units are moving quickly.
That points more toward demand and not necessarily to slower production plans, but it is not confirmed.
Tesla Cybertruck’s newest trim will undergo massive change in ten days, Musk says
Tesla is set to hike the price on March 1, so tomorrow will be the final day to grab the new Cybertruck trim for just $59,990.
It features:
- Dual Motor AWD w/ est. 325 mi of range
- Powered tonneau cover
- Bed outlets (2x 120V + 1x 240V) & Powershare capability
- Coil springs w/ adaptive damping
- Heated first-row seats w/ textile material that is easy to clean
- Steer-by-wire & Four Wheel Steering
- 6’ x 4’ composite bed
- Towing capacity of up to 7,500 lbs
- Powered frunk
Interestingly, the price offering is fairly close to what Tesla unveiled back in late 2019.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk outlines plan for first Starship tower catch attempt
Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.
Elon Musk has clarified when SpaceX will first attempt to catch Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower. The CEO’s update provides the clearest teaser yet for the spacecraft’s recovery roadmap.
Musk shared the details in recent posts on X. In his initial post, Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.
“Starship V3 SN1 headed for ground tests. I am highly confident that the V3 design will achieve full reusability,” Musk wrote.
In a follow-up post, Musk addressed when SpaceX would attempt to catch the upper stage using the launch tower’s robotic arms.
“Should note that SpaceX will only try to catch the ship with the tower after two perfect soft landings in the ocean. The risk of the ship breaking up over land needs to be very low,” Musk clarified.
His remarks suggest that SpaceX is deliberately reducing risk before attempting a tower catch of Starship’s upper stage. Such a milestone would mark a major step towards the full reuse of the Starship system.
SpaceX is currently targeting the first Starship V3 flight of 2026 this coming March. The spacecraft’s V3 iteration is widely viewed as a key milestone in SpaceX’s long-term strategy to make Starship fully reusable.
Starship V3 features a number of key upgrades over its previous iterations. The vehicle is equipped with SpaceX’s Raptor V3 engines, which are designed to deliver significantly higher thrust than earlier versions while reducing cost and weight.
The V3 design is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability, a critical step if SpaceX intends to scale the spacecraft’s production toward frequent launches for Starlink, lunar missions, and eventually Mars.
News
Tesla FSD (Supervised) could be approved in the Netherlands next month: Musk
Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared that Full Self-Driving (FSD) could receive regulatory approval in the Netherlands as soon as March 20, potentially marking a major step forward for Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance rollout in Europe.
Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin, noting that the date was provided by local authorities.
“Tesla has the most advanced real-world AI, and hopefully, it will be approved soon in Europe. We’re told by the authorities that March 20th, it’ll be approved in the Netherlands,’ what I was told,” Musk stated.
“Hopefully, that date remains the same. But I think people in Europe are going to be pretty blown away by how good the Tesla car AI is in being able to drive.”
Tesla’s FSD system relies on vision-based neural networks trained on real-world driving data, allowing vehicles to navigate using cameras and AI rather than traditional sensor-heavy solutions.
The performance of FSD Supervised has so far been impressive. As per Tesla’s safety report, Full Self-Driving Supervised has already traveled 8.3 billion miles. So far, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles.
In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.
If approval is granted on March 20, the Netherlands could become the first European market to greenlight Tesla’s latest supervised FSD (Supervised) software under updated regulatory frameworks. Tesla has been working to secure expanded FSD access across Europe, where regulatory standards differ significantly from those in the United States. Approval in the Netherlands would likely serve as a foundation for broader EU adoption, though additional country-level clearances may still be required.
Tesla drops latest hint that new Cybertruck trim is selling like hotcakes
Elon Musk outlines plan for first Starship tower catch attempt
