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Tesla’s $5B giga battery factory will disrupt more than carmakers and utilities
Making sense of Tesla Motors’ giga battery factory means taking a few steps back to see the bigger picture. We invite you to come along this electric ride as we put the pieces together and see just how disruptive Tesla really is.
Tesla is disrupting more than carmakers.
First things first, Tesla Motors isn’t a carmaker. Sorry to break it to you, but Tesla is a statement, an energy company, a lifestyle enabler and much more, wrapping it altogether into sexy computers on wheels. This is the biggest flaw carmakers made, seeing Tesla Motors as competition. Don’t believe us?
Tesla Motors, the energy management company.
Tesla Motors answered all of your electric vehicle (EV) needs, even those you didn’t know you had. What other carmaker offers you free supercharger? What other carmaker gives you soon the possibility to zip from Los Angeles to San Francisco swapping two or three battery packs? And even better, who gives you the option to pick up your original pack or keep the new one for a fee? Tesla is an EV enabler and much more.
Tesla Motors, the energy producing company.
Spending $5 billion on a battery manufacturing plant means serious business. It also means serious competition for a few unsuspecting industries, such as utilities and battery makers. Carmakers can’t make that kind of investment in battery technology, and won’t. It is too far out their business model.
Utilities is the industry segment Tesla is going after. This investment means Tesla will recycle lithium batteries and use them as storage with the solar energy it harvests. Connecting the plant to the grid means deadly competition for utilities, still trying to understand how to use EVs to their advantage. Tesla will force them to buy their energy or create their own micro-grid.
Tesla Motors, the battery company.
Tesla knows the price of lithium batteries has to continue to come down. Traditional companies struck strategic alliances to outlets, but not Tesla. After buying off the shelf, commodity lithium-ion batteries, it now will forgo the middleman to build its own batteries. This is yet another threat to battery makers worldwide. To think of the application this battery manufacturing plant has is staggering.
Tesla Motors, the lifestyle enabler challenges marketing.
More than anything, Tesla is beyond a performance cool car that runs on electrons. Tesla revolutionized the world of marketing and advertising by… not advertising. It’s not only brilliant, it saved the company millions of dollars better spent in R&D. Let’s face it, these advertising campaigns are not efficient. Why would you trust a manufacturer’s claim to be the best? It’s so impartial; everyone knows it and it just doesn’t work. Tesla is shaking the marketing world who is left to figure out what the “next big thing” is.
Tesla simply lets you drive your Model S for others to see that lifestyle statement. Remember that the Model S outsells any other car in its price range. If you think it bothers GM and Ford, imagine how Mercedes, BMW and Audi feel.
Can Tesla do no wrong?
We would be remiss not to point that the company is on a fast track to complete and absolute success in more than one industry. Still, as with such potential success, the opposite is equally valid. Investors are the Achilles heel, as the company’s stock price inflates to ridiculous levels. They could soon make unrealistic demands that could force the company down murky waters. Even Elon Musk agrees Tesla’s stocks are over-inflated.
It’s going to hurt when mainstream carmakers fully understand the wide-reaching scope of the Tesla Motors’ effect. They cannot compete with it, as much as they cannot compete with Apple or IBM. They will desperately try to catch up with a company that isn’t a carmaker. This year, utilities will wake up to the Tesla threat, after they barely get a grasp on what EVs mean for them. They will try to benefit using outdated models, but Tesla will throw a monkey wrench. Remember that if you stand in the way of Tesla, they will remove you by manufacturing it.
As we move away from a national grid to a smart grid system, with localized smart grids, utilities will have to switch from energy producers to energy managers. These are business model changes none of these industries are not equipped to make. Tesla Motors has played a fine chess game, not too many industries fully understand.
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.
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.
Tesla’s long-standing saga regarding its door handles and a manual release has entered its latest chapter, and as a result, a big change is coming.
On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied Tesla’s petition that was seeking a defect investigation into roughly 180,000 Model 3 vehicles for an issue involving the emergency mechanical door release.
🚨 The NHTSA denied a petition from Tesla that would have thrown out concerns regarding its door handles.
NHTSA said Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect warranting an investigation. The agency said a rulemaking process would be a better strategy. pic.twitter.com/j6PzUBM1mT
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
NHTSA said that Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect in the door handles or their emergency releases. Instead, the agency determined that it would rather solve the issue of the lack of labeling or location of emergency mechanical door releases and the federal safety rules that govern them.
Essentially, the NHTSA wants to create and enforce rules that would require automakers to make emergency door latch releases more clearly labeled in a car. Despite a Tesla having manual door releases on all four passenger doors, many people do not know they exist or how they work.
Tesla addresses door handle complaints with simple engineering fix
In recent times, Tesla has faced some criticism involving its door handles, specifically because some occupants have reported that they are unable to exit their vehicles after losing power. The door handles on a Tesla are electronically operated, but in the event that the 12V battery dies, there is a manual release that can be used.
The NHTSA only identified a single complaint involving the mechanical door releases: a 2022 Model 3 owner said the release was concealed and unlabeled after the vehicle lost power after a front-end collision. It has also already started to create a separate rulemaking process to make emergency door-egress systems more obvious.
It should be noted that all Teslas have mechanical emergency door releases, but they are placed in various locations as the vehicles have aged and been redesigned from year to year. Refer to the safety manual for your vehicle if you have any confusion about where the emergency releases are and how they work.
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SpaceX Starship Flight 13 faces wrath of the Texas skies
SpaceX pushed Starship Flight 13 to Friday, blaming weather instead of the previous engine issues.
SpaceX called off Thursday’s launch attempt of Starship Flight 13, pushing the mission to Friday because of weather tied to Tropical Storm Bertha. The company confirmed the delay on X, noting “Now targeting Friday, July 24 for Starship’s thirteenth flight test, due to weather. A key objective for the flight test is to get clear imagery from the ground of Starship’s heatshield as it flies at a higher dynamic pressure during ascent, which won’t be possible with today’s weather conditions.”
This is the second delay for Flight 13 in two weeks. SpaceX first tried to launch the mission on July 16, but the countdown ended in an automated abort at T-0 when four of Super Heavy Booster 20’s 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite. Musk said at the time that two Raptors would need to be removed and replaced, as Teslarati reported. The company spent the following week destacking Ship 40 and Booster 20, swapping engines, and running leak checks before restacking the vehicle on Pad 2 Wednesday night, according to Spaceflight Now’s live coverage.
Unlike the engine problem, Thursday’s delay has nothing to do with the hardware. SpaceX wants clean footage of Starship’s heat shield captured from the ground as the vehicle flies through max dynamic pressure, something the storm’s cloud cover over South Texas would not allow. The company said visibility should improve for Friday’s attempt, with the same 90 minute window opening at 5:45 p.m. CT.
Flight 13 will be the second outing for the V3 versions of Starship and Super Heavy, following their debut on Flight 12 in May. The mission carries 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, the first time SpaceX has flown operational satellites rather than mass simulators on Starship. Six of those satellites are fitted with cameras to inspect the heat shield from a different angle during ascent, giving engineers a second data source beyond the ground imagery the weather is currently blocking.
Booster 20 will attempt a boostback burn and a splashdown landing burn in the Gulf of America, while Ship 40 follows a suborbital trajectory toward a landing in the Indian Ocean. The flight plan largely mirrors Flight 12, though the booster will run a more aggressive ascent burn after max Q this time, and the ship’s heat shield includes load sensing tiles meant to measure stress at the higher dynamic pressure SpaceX is targeting.
If Friday’s attempt succeeds, Flight 13 could be the last suborbital test in the program. SpaceX is already looking to push for an orbital flight on Flight 14.
Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
