Look for Elon Musk to Unveil a Futuristic New Battery That Will Shake the Electric Car Market

Analysts predict a Battery Day big reveal that will make Teslas as affordable as gasoline vehicles

Steve LeVine
Marker

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk during the unveiling of the new Tesla Model Y in Hawthorne, California in March 2019. Photo: Frederick J. Brown/AFP, via Getty Images

TTesla has pushed ahead in a key race among the world’s electric carmakers — getting expensive cobalt out of their batteries, and reducing the cost of the vehicles. Now, Tesla watchers expect the company to announce a new benchmark for its batteries that, if successful, would take its models to a long-sought Holy Grail — side-by-side cost parity with gasoline vehicles.

The anticipation among Tesla’s feverish fans is around a big unveil next month, where they expect CEO Elon Musk to announce that he either has or will soon achieve the battery equivalent of the two-hour marathon — the $100 kWh lithium-ion battery. Battery researchers have sought the goal since the new age of electric cars began a little over a decade ago.

Tesla did not respond to an email seeking comment, but for months Musk has been building expectation around Battery Day, a second annual event where he and his lieutenants geek out on the innards that drive his vehicles. In January, Musk told analysts that what he had to say “will blow your mind. It blows my mind.”

For more than a…

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Steve LeVine
Marker
Writer for

Editor at Large, Medium, covering the turbulence all around us, electric vehicles, batteries, social trends. Writing The Mobilist. Ex-Axios, Quartz, WSJ, NYT.