Volkswagen is paying less than $100 per kWh for their MEB cars:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/business/volkswagen-trade...

I don't know if it's true. People tend to conflate the price for cells with those of modules and entire battery packs. IIRC, the holy grail is < $100/kWh for a battery pack.

The Maxwell Technologies battery technology is allegedly 10x cheaper to manufacture due to no oven or liquids and as a result, and also lighter. Elon says the "holy grail" of batteries is being able to develop an automotive grade battery at <= $100/kWh. The Maxwell tech looks to be below that, but we'll find out specifics on the upcoming Battery Investor day.

Fingers crossed that the rumours are accurate. There are a lot of "coming soon" battery improvements that aren't nearly as impressive when (if) they finally arrive. Be lovely for one to actually live up to them.

For the Tesla Semi and Cybertruck to not be huge loss leaders for Tesla, they have to have made a fundamental breakthrough in battery cost. I'm anxious to see what they come up with.

Just the super capacitor allows for much better durability of all battery technology, especially in normal driving conditions.

Maxwell made ultracapacitors not supercapacitors. Elon has stated that those weren't useful at all for Tesla, but their dry battery electrode manufacturing process stands to be the holy grail. This is what I was referring to.

Sounds like a lot of money for such a competitive market

Yeah it is a lot for this market. VW makes around €500 per car, on average.

But even that kind of a margin benefit may not justify the current valuation...