Tesla Accelerates Energy Storage Growth with Nevada Battery Expansion

February 1, 2024

By Kevin Armstrong

Tesla's Energy Expansion

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Tesla is now making significant strides in the energy storage sector, expanding its battery production capabilities in Sparks, Nevada, and doubling the capacity of its existing battery factory in Lathrop, California, according to BNN Bloomberg.

This strategic move involves utilizing idle equipment from China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), a leading battery manufacturer. This expansion is part of Tesla's broader effort to onshore the supply chain for lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cells in the United States, thereby enhancing its production autonomy and reducing dependence on overseas suppliers.

Tesla's Independent Control and Strategic Planning

In a notable departure from typical industry partnerships, Tesla plans to purchase machinery from CATL and install it at the Sparks facility. Tesla will maintain full control of the operation and cover all associated costs. CATL's role is limited to assisting with equipment setup, marking minimal involvement from the Chinese company. The new facility will focus on producing cells for Tesla’s large-battery Megapack product, which is designed for utility-scale energy storage applications.

Tesla's expansion in Nevada comes during heightened scrutiny by U.S. lawmakers and the Biden administration over technology collaborations with China, especially in sectors like battery production. By minimizing CATL's involvement in the new facility, Tesla aims to address concerns about U.S. companies' dependence on Chinese partnerships and aligns with the national policy of reducing technological dependencies.

Doubling Down: Tesla's Lathrop Factory Expansion

In addition to the new facility in Nevada, Tesla plans to double the capacity of its existing battery factory in Lathrop, California. The expansion of the Lathrop factory and the addition of the new Nevada facility underscores Tesla's commitment to scaling up its energy storage capabilities.

This move aligns with Elon Musk's assertion during last week's earnings call, “I said for many years that the storage business would grow much faster than the car business, and it is doing that.’ He also stated that Tesla’s energy storage business delivered nearly 15 gigawatt hours of batteries in 2023, compared to 6.5 gigawatt hours the year before. “So tremendous year-over-year growth, triple-digits. And yeah, I think we'll continue to see robust growth in storage, as predicted."

Commitment to Supplier Collaboration and Growth

Karn Budhiraj, Vice President of Global Supply Management, shared insights on the company's plans during the earnings call: "Megapack continues to see strong demand signals globally, driving consistent growth trajectory through '24 and '25. We want to thank all of our partners who've put their trust in the Megapack team to execute critical infrastructure worldwide. And I would like to personally thank the Megapack engineering and production teams for their strong 2023 execution. Lathrop continues to ramp through 2024 with the operation of a second final assembly line to double capacity from 20 gigawatts to 40 gigawatt hours by the end of the year."

Elon Musk also emphasized the importance of Tesla's suppliers in this growth, "But we also do want to emphasize that we also expect to ramp orders from our suppliers. So this is not about replacing our suppliers, it's about supplementing our suppliers. So we are very appreciative of our suppliers. Panasonic, obviously, is our longest supplier. They're an amazing company. We've got CATL, we've got LG, and BYD."

The new Nevada facility, expected to become operational by 2025, will start with an initial output of approximately 10 gigawatt-hours (GWh). Plans are in place to expand the facility, contingent upon the project's smooth progression and establishing a stable supply chain. Once fully operational, the Nevada facility could contribute significantly to Tesla's overall battery production capacity in the region, potentially accounting for about 20% of the production, including the output from the Lathrop location.

Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

December 11, 2024

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

Yesterday, we reported that Tesla updated their Steam integration on Model S and Model X vehicles. The update was part of their 2024 Holiday Update, but it looks like there may be more to this than a simple update.

Steam, a video game library app, makes it easy for users to buy or launch games on their computers. However, a couple of years ago, Valve, who created Steam, launched their own standalone device, the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck runs a custom OS based on Linux.

Steam Launch

When Tesla launched the redesigned Model S and Model X, Tesla introduced a dedicated gaming GPU with 16GB of RAM and touted the ability to play top-tier PC games in Tesla vehicles.

In 2022, Tesla finally launched the Steam app for the Model S and Model X as part of its 2022 Holiday Update. The Steam app runs Steam OS, the same OS as the Steam Deck in a virtual environment.

However, earlier this year, Tesla stopped including the GPU and Steam (Beta) in their vehicles, and we haven’t seen any updates to the Steam in quite some time. In fact, we thought Tesla was axing their gaming-on-the-go dreams.

SteamOS Update

The Steam app, which is still in Beta, is getting an interesting update for the Model S and Model X vehicles with the discrete GPU.

Those vehicles received an update to SteamOS 3.6 - the same version of SteamOS that runs on the Steam Deck. While nothing has visually changed, there’s a long list of performance optimizations under the hood to get things running smoother.

Comparing Steam Deck to Tesla Vehicles

Let’s take a look at the Steam Deck - according to Valve, its onboard Zen4 CPU and GPU combined push a total of 2 TFlops of data, which is fairly respectable, but much lower than today’s home consoles. The Steam Deck is capable of 720p gaming fairly seamlessly on low-to-medium settings on the go and is also built on the AMD platform.

AMD-equipped Teslas, including the Model 3 and Model Y, are packing an older Zen+ (Zen 1.5) APU (processor with a combined CPU and GPU). AMD claims that the V1000 - the same embedded chip as on AMD Tesla vehicles (YE1807C3T4MFB), brings up to 3.6 TFLops of processing power with it, including 4K encoding and decoding with the integrated GPU on board.

While that’s not enough for 4K gaming or comparable to a full-blown console or desktop GPU, that’s enough raw horsepower for light gaming and is currently more powerful than the Steam Deck.

The Model S and Model X’s GPU brings that up to about 10TFlops of power - comparable to modern consoles like the Xbox Series X at 12 TFlops.

Steam Gaming for All Vehicles?

The fact that Tesla is updating SteamOS even though the feature is no longer available in any new vehicles could indicate that Tesla is not only bringing Steam back to Teslas but that it’s going to play a much bigger role.

While SteamOS is run in a virtual environment on top of Tesla’s own OS, we could see Tesla bring SteamOS to all of its current vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. Steam in these vehicles would likely support any game that’s capable of running on the Steam Deck.

We think this Steam update, which includes performance improvements and a variety of fixes, has quietly passed under most people’s radars. This could be a very exciting update for those who enjoy gaming, especially for those who love to do it in their Tesla.

Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

December 11, 2024

By Karan Singh

Robert Rosenfeld / YouTube

As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.

However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.

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Weather At Destination

When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.

Note the weather under the arrival time

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You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.

You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.

And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.

Tesla also recently introduced a new voice command. Asking, “What’s the weather?” or something similar will now bring up Tesla’s weather popup.

The weather pop-up above the ETA

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One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.

Weather Radar Overlay

As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a radar overlay centered on your vehicle. It’ll animate through the radar data over the last 3 hours so that you can see the direction of the storm, but you can also pause it at any point.

You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, even if you zoom out. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.

Requirements / Data

Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.

As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.