Elon Musk: Tesla’s upcoming event will focus on batteries, not powertrain — ‘a lot to talk about’

Elon Musk elaborated on Tesla’s upcoming event. He says that despite previous comments, it will focus only on batteries and not powertrain, as they have “a lot to talk about.”

Last year, Musk said that Cybertruck is Tesla’s last product unveil for “a while,” but he teased some upcoming tech announcements.

Those announcements were expected to happen at what Tesla has been referring to as “Powertrain and Battery Investor Day.”

Much like the “Autonomy Day” that happened last year, Tesla said that it is planning to give presentations to investors, which are livestreamed, about the automaker’s latest development in powertrains and battery technology.

Later, Musk referred to the event as “Tesla April company talk” and said that it will be held at Gigafactory New York, where Tesla plans to offer media and investors tours of the facility.

Now things have changed and Musk said that Tesla will not involve new powertrain information, aside from taking questions, and the event will focus on batteries.

He said on Twitter today:

There’s a lot to talk about just on the battery front, so, yeah, just that. I guess we could answer some powertrain questions in Q&A.

As we previously reported, Electrek revealed that Tesla will present the result of its internal secret Roadrunner project at the event.

The goal is for Tesla to produce its own battery cells using technologies developed by Tesla’s internal teams, including work from its research lab in Canada led by Jeff Dahn, and new technologies recently acquired through the acquisition of Maxwell, on a massive scale and at a cost below $100 per kWh.

Tesla has already tested prototype cells under the Roadrunner secret project. It believes it can produce the cells in volume and use them in its vehicles and eventually in its stationary energy storage products.

The automaker has been developing manufacturing equipment in secrecy, like the pilot production line in Fremont, over the last few months.

As Musk said last week, the event has been pushed to “maybe mid-May” due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Electrek’s Take

We expect that Tesla will present the result of project Roadrunner. It will unveil the battery cell itself with all its properties (energy density, longevity, charge and discharge rate, etc.), and then go into its plan to produce the battery cell themselves on a massive scale.

At the event, we expect Tesla to announce several locations where it plans to deploy its own battery cell manufacturing lines developed in-house.

Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Shanghai seem to be likely locationss, but we also expect one in the US, maybe the new Cybertruck Gigafactory in the midwestern US.

Also, as we previously reported, one source told Electrek that CEO Elon Musk is pushing to have a new battery pack with the new Tesla-made battery cells ready to install in a Model S or Model X for the “Battery Investor Day.”

This would be a way for Tesla to differentiate itself from other automakers who announce EV plans without much to show for.