Leave it to Elon Musk to turn battery chemistry into a viral phenomenon.Musk teased a forthcoming 'Battery Day” during Tesla's second-quarter earnings call. He noted that "cell production at an affordable price" is the key limitation on Tesla's growth. But that was about it for details on what the day would actually include. The internet went to work theorizing the big reveal. Now the show is almost upon us (it goes live Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. Pacific, in theory), and there's not much more in terms of hard facts to go on. But we at GTM have been following the battery market for years and are veteran observers of Tesla announcing things. Sometimes the much-hyped announcements turn out to be overblown. The original Solar Roof launch, for instance, made it look like that product existed back in the fall of 2016. Years later, Tesla hosted a second launch to declare that the Solar Roof was really ready for prime time, at last. History shows that a Tesla announcement does not irrefutably confer a meaningful shift in the market. But because Musk has built up expectations for battery day, it's become an event before it has even transpired. Wall Street analysts are making predictions about what will be revealed. Shareholders are sweating to find out if the news sends the stock even higher. A boring or overly technical reveal could disappoint the market, which is dicey because meaningful battery science often appears boring and technical to the untrained eye. Here's a short list of questions to ask going into the event to help separate stardust from strategic game-changers. 1. Will this significantly change Tesla's battery costs? Tesla could toggle a range of inputs - battery chemistry, format, manufacturing process - but ultimately it all comes down to cost. Can Tesla use its engineering might and industrial design experience to meaningfully shave the cost off the batteries that form the crucial cost center of the... |