Investor's Corner
Tesla files to build EV batteries on new production lines at Fremont Factory
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has filed to build a new battery manufacturing equipment line at the Fremont Factory in Northern California. The factory, which Tesla purchased in 2010, is the only in the company’s lineup to produce all four models. It has not been known as a battery cell or pack manufacturing plant, as the company’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, produces those EV components. However, the filings indicate Tesla may be looking to slightly expand its cell manufacturing efforts with new production lines at Fremont.
Filed and signed by Tesla on August 30, the permit is labeled as “Tesla F21-0391-A – CTA Battery B-Build.” Tesla gives the following description of the project:
“NEW BATTERY MANUFACTURING EQUIPMENT LINE ON 2ND FLOOR OF MAIN ASSEMBLY BUILDING. THIS PERMIT APPLICATION RELATES TO THE MODULE PORTION OF THE LINE.”
The project is valued at $1.5 million, according to documents seen by Teslarati.
Credit: City of Fremont
Additionally, another application reveals a $1.3 million project that includes the installation of a new maintenance office, a storage area, production cells with equipment for hood, fender, and trunk lids, and offline cell manufacturing equipment. This project is listed to be on the first floor of the assembly building.
Interestingly, the Fremont Factory has been one of Tesla’s more spacially-confined facilities. Earlier this year, during a visit from Morgan Stanley analysts, including Adam Jonas, the firm noted the Fremont Factory was incredibly tight in terms of storage capacity and room in general. Despite running at a capacity of 20 percent above what has been considered its maximum. “The plant was never designed to produce 450k units (at its peak produced ~300k units before Tesla took it over from Toyota), which was immediately apparent at the tour, ” Jonas wrote in his note describing the visit. “Tesla does not shy away from the fact the plant is inefficiently designed with four assembly buildings, one of which is a tent that cars are assembled in,” referring to GA 4.5, which was made permanent last year.
Just two weeks prior to Morgan Stanley’s visit to Fremont, CEO Elon Musk stated Tesla was considering expanding Fremont “significantly.” While many of us just thought this likely meant an expansion of vehicle production alone, Musk may have been hinting toward an expansion of the manufacturing process altogether.
Tesla battery manufacturing efforts
Tesla has held battery supply deals with Panasonic, CATL, and LG Chem, but has also started building its own cells in-house. In 2020, Tesla unveiled its 4680 battery cell, which has already been prototype-tested by Panasonic. Tesla has been building the cell at the Kato Rd. facility just a few blocks away from Fremont’s front doors. However, the automaker has not scaled this cell to mass production as of yet, and Tesla could always use more battery cells.
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With the 4680 cell not quite reaching mass production volumes yet, an order log that grows with what seems to be every minute, and a production volume that just simply has not caught up to Tesla’s demand, it would make sense to expand in-house battery manufacturing efforts as supplementary support.
“I think we’ve said this now for many years. I know has proven true. Tesla does not have a demand problem, we have a production problem. And we’ve almost always had it’s a very rare exception it’s always been a production problem,” Musk said after Q2. “I think that will remain the case.”
Rearranging at the Fremont Factory
Over the past month or so, Tesla has filed to make many significant changes at the Fremont Factory. After we reported on the construction efforts that are seemingly underway, Tesla has also been filing several applications with the City of Fremont for equipment repositioning, as well as the construction of new foundations and manufacturing equipment. Even things as simple as light poles are being repositioned to make way for potential new manufacturing buildings.
Tesla Fremont plant is abuzz with activity as nearby construction goes underway
Tesla has also started relocating Model S and X production equipment to other portions of the factory. “GASX,” which we can assume is “General Assembly Model S and X,” has had a hoist relocated, according to filings. Tesla has also filed to install production tools and other associated Model S and Model X manufacturing utilities in the factory. This does not necessarily imply that production lines for the two vehicles will be expanding, especially considering the vehicles make up an extremely small portion of Tesla’s overall sales. However, these manufacturing lines may be shifting to other locations at Fremont to make way for the perhaps imminent installation of cell manufacturing lines at Fremont.
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SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
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The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
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— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
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Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
Elon Musk updates the SpaceX timeline for Mars
