Coretec Group Inc (CRTG)

[BoomSoon]

Musk is hoping an inventive rival…

won’t eclipse his battery technology and render the gigafactory instantly obsolete.

Finally there are the technological questions. The gigafactory will make commodity 18650s using a standard nickel-cobalt-aluminum lithium-ion (NCA) formulation. But with battery researchers around the world working on a breakthrough, Musk is betting that none will leap ahead of NCA in a way that he cannot simply tweak his machines.

… that he can achieve his goal of making a mass-market Tesla by the end of the decade that can sell for $35,000, around half the current base price of the Model S.

The key … is the gigafactory, whose manufacturing economies he says will bring down battery costs by some 30%. That is substantial considering that the battery is the most expensive single component in electric cars. Tesla does not disclose the cost of its batteries, but one estimate is around $15,000 for the 200-mile-range battery in the Model S.

… Musk would chop about $5,000 off the price of the battery, a big step toward the mass-market car.

http://qz.com/214093/tesla-elon-musk-5-billion-gigafactory-gamble/