One of the most anticipated days for Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) investors is a live-streamed event known as “Battery Day.” In addition to the company’s annual shareholder meeting, Elon Musk had hyped up the company’s Battery Day event earlier this year, a time where Tesla would showcase new developments in its battery technology. It was during the event that Musk revealed that he’s planning to launch a new $25,000 electric car model that would directly compete with other low-cost cars models on the market.
Leading up to the event over the past few weeks, there was quite a bit of excitement on the part of shareholders. However, Musk made a number of tweets the day prior that seemed as if he was downplaying the event in an attempt to temper expectations. In response, shares of the company dipped a little in anticipation of what might happen.
Already the largest carmaker in the world in terms of market cap, Tesla is now aiming to develop a low-cost competitor to other automakers out there. At the event, Elon Musk went on to say that he expects an annual production target of 20 million cars, which is more than double that of other carmakers, such as Volkswagen.
“One of the things that troubles me the most is that we don’t yet have a truly affordable car, and that is something that we will make in the future. But in order to do that, we’ve got to get the cost of batteries down,” said Musk during the event.
However, Tesla’s CEO did admit that battery advancements were taking longer than anticipated. Musk went on to say that it could take as long as three full years to see battery costs decrease for Tesla. Currently, most electric carmakers use cobalt in their batteries, a hard-to-secure metal produced primarily in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo. Even before the pandemic, securing a steady cobalt supply was challenging. Although some investors had speculated that Musk would announce a prototype, non-cobalt battery, it appears that this is still quite far off in the horizon.
Shares are down around 5.6% today. That’s more to do with the actual anticipation leading up to the event rather than any event-related news itself. Investors were worried that Elon Musk, who usually goes quite far to hype up Tesla-related announcements, was trying to dampen expectations leading up to the event for some reason. Although the CEO did reveal that battery production is challenging and difficult, especially in these times, there wasn’t anything all that bad in the live-streamed event.
Tesla Company Profile
Founded in 2003 and based in Palo Alto, California, Tesla is a vertically integrated sustainable energy company that also aims to transition the world to electric mobility by making electric vehicles. It sells solar panels and solar roofs for energy generation plus batteries for stationary storage for residential and commercial properties including utilities. The Tesla Roadster debuted in 2008, Model S in 2012, Model X in 2015, Model 3 in 2017, and Model Y in 2020. Global deliveries in 2019 were 367,656 units. Tesla went public in 2010 and employs about 50,000 people. – Warrior Trading News
