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Lithium produced for Tesla’s batteries is less polluting than 31 cups of coffee: researcher
There are many criticisms of electric vehicles like Teslas, and one of them involves the notion that EVs require massive amounts of water to produce the lithium in their batteries. This idea, according to Dr. Maximilian Fichtner, who serves as the Director at the Helmholtz Institute for Electrochemical Energy Storage in Germany, is not accurate at all.
In a recent conversation with Tagesspiegel Background, the battery researcher stated that the production of electric car batteries is not as extreme as what EV critics would suggest. To produce the lithium needed for a 64 kWh battery pack, for example, Fichtner stated that about 3840 liters of water are evaporated according to usual calculation methods. This is roughly comparable to the production of 250 grams of beef, 30 cups of coffee, or half a pair of jeans, according to the researcher.
Explaining further, Fichtner stated that even before electric cars like Teslas became popular, lithium was already being used in large quantities in many industrial and chemical processes. Lithium-ion batteries are also widely used in mobile devices, which are universally accepted today. “I’m always surprised that the public never talks about lithium in laptops or mobile phones – but suddenly it’s a problem with the e-car,” the battery researcher said.
But the water consumption involved in the production of lithium for electric car batteries is just the tip of the iceberg. Fichtner estimates that a 64 kWh pack is likely in the middle of various variants of the Tesla Model 3 sedan, whose long-range versions can easily go beyond 450 km (280 miles) of range per charge. If one were to infer that an electric car battery pack can remain optimal with 2,000 full charging cycles, this could equate to a total distance of about 900,000 km. And that’s with estimates on existing battery technology.
With this in mind, it appears that Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries are actually less polluting than otherwise everyday items such as steak or the aforementioned 30 cups of coffee, since they have the potential to remain in service for a very long time. About 2,000 charging cycles, after all, would likely equate to years of average EV use.
Companies like Tesla are hard at work in improving their battery cells. This much is hinted at by Tesla executives such as CEO Elon Musk and President of Automotive Jerome Guillen, both of whom have noted that Tesla’s batteries are always evolving. Fichtner expects electric car batteries to have an average lifespan of 3,000 cycles by 2025, which would make EV batteries even more environmentally-friendly.
In his recent conversation with the publication, the researcher discussed one of the most sensitive topics surrounding battery production: cobalt. Cobalt has developed a very negative reputation due to the abhorrent conditions in cobalt mines in areas such as Congo. Fortunately, many automakers have since pledged to source the cobalt used in their EVs from areas that meet stringent standards. Tesla does this and more, with the electric car maker attempting to develop cobalt-free batteries in the near future.
For now, electric car makers are in a game of cobalt reduction, and in this sense, Tesla has a notable lead. The batteries used in Volkswagen’s well-received ID.3 hatchback, for example, contain about 12-14% cobalt. The Tesla Model 3, on the other hand, only contains about 2.9% cobalt as of 2018. Fichtner predicts that if things go well, cobalt-free batteries could enter the market as early as 2025.
Maximilian Fichtner received his Ph.D. in Chemistry/Surface Science with distinction and the Hermann Billing Award for his thesis in 1992. He currently serves as the professor for Solid State Chemistry at the Ulm University and Executive Director of the Helmholtz Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage (HIU). He has also worked in collaboration with the German ministries of Economy and Research and Education, and has served as the Chair of the 1st International Symposium on Magnesium Batteries in 2016.
Elon Musk
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
OpenAI will cut SpaceX-owned Cursor’s model access in November, citing Musk’s history of broken contracts.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced late Friday that it is ending its partnership with Cursor, cutting off the coding tool’s access to its models on November 12. The move comes two weeks after SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor’s parent company, Anysphere, folding the popular AI coding assistant into Elon Musk’s growing SpaceXAI division.
In a post on its website, OpenAI said the decision came down to trust, not technology. “We cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts,” the company wrote. OpenAI pointed to two specific incidents: X, now part of SpaceX, allegedly breaking the terms of an existing OpenAI contract after Musk bought Twitter.
That lawsuit is the backdrop for all of this. Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015, left the board in 2018, and sued Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing they abandoned the company’s nonprofit mission for profit. A federal jury sided with OpenAI in May, finding Musk waited too long to sue rather than ruling on the merits of his claims. Musk said at the time he would appeal to the Ninth Circuit, calling the outcome a “calendar technicality” rather than a real judgment.
SpaceX’s interest in Cursor predates that verdict by weeks. The company first struck a deal with Cursor in April, securing an option to acquire it for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for joint development work instead. As Teslarati reported at the time, the logic was straightforward: Cursor was paying retail prices to Anthropic and OpenAI, two of its most direct competitors, every time a developer used its product, while SpaceX had idle capacity on its Colossus supercomputer, roughly the equivalent of a million Nvidia H100 GPUs, that Cursor could use to train its own models instead. SpaceX exercised the option in June, days after its own IPO, and the deal closed in mid-August.
Once it closed, Musk moved fast. On an all-hands call with more than 1,000 Cursor employees, he reportedly told staff that SpaceXAI’s Grok was playing catchup in the AI race, unlike Tesla and SpaceX in their own markets, and singled out Anthropic as the company to catch. Cursor CEO Michael Truell now reports directly to Musk inside SpaceXAI.
Losing OpenAI’s models leaves Cursor leaning harder on Anthropic’s Claude, which has its own compute agreement with SpaceX, and on Cursor’s in-house Composer model, the one SpaceX’s compute was supposed to accelerate in the first place. OpenAI framed the November deadline as maximum notice under its contract, and said it wants to “go above and beyond” to help developers through the transition. Whether Anthropic makes the same call is now the open question in AI coding.
The in-car Tesla Theater is among the most unique features available within the cars. When charging, parked, camping, or just hanging out, vehicle occupants can access a variety of streaming platforms on the large center screen, helping keep them entertained during downtime.
However, the Theater might be getting plenty more streaming platforms, something that owners have requested for some time.
Tesla owners recently discovered that visiting Apple TV in the vehicle browser can launch a fullscreen interface that looks and behaves like a dedicated application rather than an ordinary webpage:
Today I learned that if you go to Apple TV in the Tesla browser, it will open up an actual Apple TV app, fully functional. Not just the site.
Apparently there are more apps than just the few that show on the apps page. pic.twitter.com/os1Ypfm4JR
— Jason W (@jmwilt21) August 20, 2026
The experience drops the usual address bar and browser chrome, presenting catalogs, continue watching rows, and playback controls in the same window Tesla Theater already uses for its listed services. Independent testers soon found similar treatment for HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney+, and Prime Video when those sites are opened from the car browser.
This shift is a plausible early signal that Tesla is widening Theater support without a formal software note. Theater has long been a set of web views rather than native applications, so recognizing extra domains and stripping the browser frame is a small server-side change that can expand the catalog quickly.
Owners still lack permanent Theater icons for the newly recognized services, and video remains limited to Park, yet the smoother launch is a meaningful step toward a broader lounge while charging.
Tesla Theater arrived with software version 10 in September 2019. The first video services were Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu, available only while parked and originally tied to WiFi. Spotify arrived in the same era as music rather than Theater video. Disney+ joined officially in July 2021 with the 2021.24 update, giving owners another major catalog on the center screen. Twitch and TikTok later appeared among the default Theater tiles, and Tesla Tutorials remained a persistent educational tile.
Not every addition stayed put. In December 2023, a Holiday software build removed the Disney+ tile for many United States owners after a public dispute involving advertising on X. Hulu stayed visible even though Disney owned it. Visiting disneyplus.com in the browser often restored the tile, which suggested the removal was a recognition list change rather than a complete block. Owners have also reported occasional blank Theater grids after updates, usually fixed by language toggles, resets, or later firmware.
Tesla axes Disney+ from vehicles with Musk-Iger rivalry, but there’s a workaround
Code archives from 2024 listed many unused source names, including Apple TV and Prime Video, that never became official icons, which now looks like groundwork for the current fullscreen browser behavior.
Now that this hint toward an expanded Theater experience has been recognized, Tesla could follow through with these additional shortcuts as a sign that more streaming platforms are available in Teslas than ever before.
Tesla recently received its largest order for the all-electric Semi from Einride, a Swedish transport service, for 500 units, a groundbreaking invoice to receive before the first deliveries begin.
Even more remarkable, Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli said in a recent interview that he expects his company to take delivery of all 500 — the entire order — before the end of 2027. He even expects to have 75 Tesla Semi units in the Einride fleet before the end of this year.
🚨 Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli on the Tesla Semi partnership:
“If we start with the Amazon announcement that we did earlier this year, that was on the back of having gone through a proving period together with them and proving out our technology. Then we took that next step in… pic.twitter.com/oazkXjwoig
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 28, 2026
Charli said the Tesla partnership was part of a broader push, along with its earlier partnership with Amazon. Einride is assisting Amazon with the use of its Saga AI platform, which helps eliminate questions about budgeting and forecasting for logistics companies.
The Semi, as well as Tesla’s production and subsequent delivery of the units to Einride, will help the company “to have a good supply of vehicles that we can deploy on the [Saga AI] platform,” Charli said. “Tesla is also a relationship we’ve had for a while, and as the Tesla Semi deliveries are firming up, we decided to do a larger commitment to that and deploy that on our platform.”
In its initial announcement, Einride said it anticipated taking delivery of the trucks over the next two years, but now it appears the company is expecting all 500 units within the next 16 months.
Built at a dedicated factory in Sparks, Nevada, the Tesla Semi has been perhaps the biggest and most intensive testing process the company has ever had for a single vehicle model. For the past several years, Tesla has been working with many companies, most notably Frito-Lay and PepsiCo, to gain knowledge on the performance on regional routes.
Tesla plans to launch the Semi officially on September 24, five months after production started ramping.
Additionally, drivers have said they are happy about the Semi’s performance and that its numerous safety and productivity features have made their jobs and routes much easier.
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
Tesla Theater might be getting plenty more streaming platforms
