News
Toyota, Stellantis, Ford, and other OEMs begin serious battery production push
It seems like legacy automakers, including Toyota, Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors, are starting to embrace the EV transition. Detroit’s Big 3 and Toyota all announced investments in battery plants these last few weeks. These indicate that veteran automakers are taking a serious step toward mass electric vehicle production.
Toyota’s US Battery Plant
On Monday, Toyota announced plans to invest $3.4 billion in battery development and production within the United States. The Japanese automaker plans to strengthen its position in North America with the investment, including a $1.3 billion EV battery plant to produce in-house cells under a new company.
The battery facility will initially produce batteries for hybrids. It will work with Toyota Tsusho Corporation, which has a Metals Division that focuses on vehicle weight reduction and electrification functionalities. Toyota expects the battery plant to start production in 2025 and expand through 2031, offering about 1,750 jobs.
Stellantis & LG’s Partnership
On the same day Toyota announced its North American investment, Stellantis made one of its own. In a press release, Stellantis announced a joint venture with LG Energy Solution to produce lithium-ion batteries in North America. The automaker plans to start building a new battery plant by Q1 2024.
Stellantis expects its new battery plant to have an annual production capacity of 40 GWh. The cells produced at the plant will supply Stellantis assembly plants in the United States, Canada, and Mexico to produce electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
The remaining two automakers that make up the Detroit 3—Ford and General Motors—announced battery investment plans a few weeks before Stellantis.
Ford plans to invest $11.4 billion in electric vehicle production, and most of the investment will go towards battery development. Along with SK Innovation, the legacy automaker plans to invest in three battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Meanwhile, General Motors announced it would be building a battery cell research and innovation facility in Michigan called the Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center. The facility is already under construction. GM expects the center to be entirely built by mid-2022.
Legacy auto and the EV transition
The announcements mentioned above are a significant step for legacy OEMs in terms of the EV transition. It was only recently that traditional automakers even took the electric vehicle market seriously. Even now, some automakers are unsure about the future of EVs in the global car market.
“All of us are trying to get a fix on how customers will accept electric vehicles,” said Chris Reynolds, chief administrative officer for Toyota in North America, to The Associated Press. “We don’t know for sure, but we have to be ready.”
However, consumers are showing more interest in new energy vehicles. According to consulting firm Alix Partners, EV sales could increase by 11% in 2025 and 24% in 2030. Currently, electric vehicles sales make up only ~4.8% of about 80 million new vehicles sales worldwide, based on LMC Automotive research.
The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, reach out to me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.
Energy
Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.
The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.
Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.
Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.
The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.
Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.
The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.
At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.