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Tesla targets lower operating costs through new waste water treatment system patent
Tesla is arguably one of the most dynamic companies in the industry today, with its tendency to constantly innovate even after it reaches its ambitious targets. This particular culture was mentioned by Tesla’s President of Automotive Jerome Guillen in a recent interview with CNBC, when he stated that Tesla’s work, specifically in its batteries, continue to evolve over time. Elon Musk echoed this tendency on Twitter, stating that even Tesla’s vehicles like the Model S and X are partially upgraded every month “as soon as a new subsystem is ready for production.”
Such a culture is emblematic of Tesla. Such a culture is also reflected in a recently published patent for the company, which outlines a clever waste water treatment system that could pave the way for more cost savings in operational expenses. The patent is titled System for Regenerating Sodium Hydroxide and Sulfuric Acid from Waste Water Stream Containing Sodium and Sulfate Ions and was published on November 15.
Tesla notes in its patent description that “acid leaching performed through the addition of sulfuric acid and neutralization through the addition of sodium hydroxide” are common processes used in manufacturing. As a result of these processes, waste water containing high concentrations of sodium and sulfate ions produced, since sodium and sulfate ions are very soluble and are difficult to remove through conventional precipitation processes. Tesla notes that these factors could result in large quantities of waste water being disposed — a process that is both expensive and harmful for the environment.
In a conventional waste water treatment setup, three chambers separated by an anion exchange membrane (AEM) and a cation exchange membrane (CEM), as well as anodes and cathodes, are utilized. Tesla notes that the present system for waste water treatment leaves much to be desired, considering that the setup is not cost-effective at all.
“With the prior art system, not all of the sodium and sulfate ions are able to be removed from the waste water feed stream to produce the ‘treated’ water. This reduces recovery of acid/caustic, and also presents challenges when trying to reuse the “treated” water. This process becomes increasingly difficult as the concentration of ions in the waste water feed stream lowers as it moves through the electrolysis treatment system, and an increasing amount of electrical voltage needs to be applied.
“Further, the generated acid/caustic products can only be produced at low concentrations. As the product streams increase in concentration, an increasing amount of electrical voltage is needed between the anode and the cathode. Further, as the membranes AEM and CEM are in contact with these higher concentration acid/caustic products, the lifetime of the membranes and decreases. The combination of a high electrical load, low recovery efficiency, low recovered acid/caustic concentrations, and short component lifetimes make the prior art system economically unviable.”
Tesla’s waste water treatment system utilizes membrane concentration systems as a cornerstone to develop a system where waste water is treated and possibly even reused. The electric car maker describes its system in the following description.
“As compared to prior waste water treatment systems, the waste water treatment system of the present disclosure uses the three dedicated membrane concentration systems to maintain high ion concentrations in the feed and low ion concentrations in the product chambers. The first thermal concentration system takes in the dilute acid produced by the electrolysis treatment system that allows pure water to permeate while the dissolved acid species are rejected. The pure water is recycled back to the second chamber of the electrolysis treatment system to dilute this stream, while the reject concentrated acid is extracted as a product.
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“The second thermal concentration system takes in the dilute caustic produced by the electrolysis treatment system and allows pure water to permeate while the dissolved caustic species are rejected. The pure water is recycled back to the third chamber of the electrolysis treatment system to dilute this stream, while the reject concentrated caustic is extracted as a product. The membrane concentration system takes in the existing waste water that still contains significant dissolved sodium and sulfate. Pure water is extracted as a product, and the concentrate reject is sent back to the electrolysis treatment system waste water feed to maintain a high concentration of sodium and sulfate ions in the waste water feed.”
With such a system in place, Tesla expects to see optimizations in its operations. The Silicon Valley-based carmaker noted in its patent that its waste water treatment system would likely even extend the lifetime of components such as the AEM and CEM, resulting in more cost savings.
“The waste water treatment system of the present disclosure has significant operational advantages, including resulting in large positive driving concentration gradient assisting electric voltage, as opposed to negative gradient resisting electric voltage in (a) conventional system, dramatically reducing electrical load. The waste water treatment system allows for the AEM and CEM of the electrolysis treatment system to be in contact with low concentration acid/caustic, significantly increasing their lifetimes.
“Further, the produced acid/caustic from the membrane concentration systems are at much higher concentrations than the electrolysis treatment system could make on its own, increasing their value. Moreover, the exiting pure water product is Reverse Osmosis (RO) quality and can be directly used to service pure water needs. The recovery of both sodium and sulfate ions is near 100%, since there are almost no remaining ions in the exiting pure water product.”
Over the past months, published patents from the company show that Tesla is looking to optimize several aspects of its operations. Included among these is a rigid structural cable that could open the gates for more automation, a flexible clamping assembly that would allow the company to easily address panel gaps, as well as a DCM recovery system that could make battery manufacturing safer.
Tesla’s recently published patent for its novel waste water treatment system could be accessed in full here.
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In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
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Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
SpaceX’s massive investment in AI will make it a big winner, Argus Research said after the company’s successful earnings call last week.
The firm also upgraded shares to a Buy from Hold and set a $160 price target.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is currently recovering from its heavy AI infrastructure investments, as it spent nearly $16 billion in Q2 alone. The company did this primarily by monetizing high-demand GPU compute capacity at a much faster pace than traditional data center economics would suggest.
Company CFO Bret Johnsen said that SpaceX would be able to pay back anything on new deployments within a year.
There are plenty of ways the company can do this:
Leasing excess compute capacity through contracts
SpaceX has already built Colossus and Colossus II, largely for its own model training. However, much of that capacity is already rented out to third parties. It already has major deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. These partnerships are adding billions per month to SpaceX’s spreadsheet.
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High utilization driven by industry-wide scarcity
The demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity continues to exceed what is available for use. SpaceX can fill new racks quickly after they come online, so the capital deployed converts into revenue with minimal idle time.
Additionally, management and outside observers have described the new compute capital as behaving more like a cost-of-goods-sold than traditional multi-year capex, especially because of this rapid monetization pattern.
Capacity has already scaled from ~0.4 GW a year to 1.4 GW annually by the end of Q2. There are targets of more than 2 GW by year-end.
High incremental margins on the rental business once capacity is online
GPU cloud providers often operate at strong gross margins. SpaceX can monetize capacity that was already partially built or can be added efficiently. This means that incremental EBITDA margins on the rental revenue are usually high. This accelerates cash recovery relative to the gross capital outlay.
Parallel monetization of its own AI software and applications
Beyond pure infrastructure rental, SpaceX also generates revenue from Grok through subscriptions and usage, from X through ads, data, and other related services, enterprise APIs, and the planned integration of the Cursor coding tools acquisition.
These application layers ride on the same compute infrastructure and provide additional high-margin streams that could offset build-out costs. AI-segment revenue overall rose sharply to about $2.6 billion in Q2, according to Motley Fool. This was driven primarily by the infrastructure contracts, but the software side is also partially responsible.
Efficient, large-scale deployment and vertical integration advantages
SpaceX has emphasized the rapid construction of power and cooling infrastructure and favorable cost-per-megawatt economics relative to industry benchmarks in some disclosures.
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Combined with its ability to scale capacity aggressively and the fact that many contracts start generating revenue within months of capacity coming online, the effective payback compresses dramatically compared with more conventional multi-year data-center projects.
SpaceX’s dominant near-term recovery path will turn the AI clusters into a hyperscale-style compute rental business for other leading AI companies while still using a portion for internal models.
Tesla headlights have caused a recall of over 20,000 of the company’s two most popular vehicles, the Model 3 and Model Y, due to the low-beam bulb exceeding the maximum allowed intensity according to federal standards.
Tesla initiated the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) this morning, stating that the low-beam output “exceeds the maximum allowed intensity in the outer upper-right and outer upper-left areas of the 10U and 90U zone, as prescribed in FMVSS No. 108.”
Tesla sourced the impacted headlights from Marelli Automotive Lighting, a Mexico-based company. The recall impacts 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles and 2017-2023 Model 3 vehicles. It is estimated that every VIN in this recall is impacted by the defect.
🚨 Tesla is recalling 20,349 2020-23 Model Y vehicles and 2017-23 Model 3 vehicles due to an excessively bright headlamp low beam.
Currently, there is no remedy plan in place, as it is still being developed. pic.twitter.com/y34cIO2U0B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 11, 2026
Typically, Tesla would remedy recalls of this nature through an Over-the-Air software update, which has been a major focus of criticism by the company and its supporters because the NHTSA still refers to it as a “recall,” even though it requires no action by the vehicle owner. The fix is shipped over the internet and downloaded to the car.
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However, there appears to be a potentially different solution for this problem. Tesla has not developed a remedy for this issue, so it could potentially be on the way. The big issue appears to be the fact that these recalled lamps are out of production, and this is an old body style for both vehicles. The headlights and front-end designs are completely different.
Tesla switched to another supplier when the affected headlight design was discontinued. It plans to begin notifying owners of their remedy options by September 15.
Tesla filed a petition protesting the recall to fix the vehicles’ headlight issue, but the NHTSA denied it. Now, Tesla will come up with a solution to fix it.
Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors: Morgan Stanley
SpaceX AI investment gamble will make it a big winner, firm says
