Awkward.
Have you ever had one of those moments where, mid-debate, you suddenly realise you’ve lost the argument? If you’re anything like me, you’ll buy your editor another drink and pretend it was a draw. If you’re Elon Musk, however, and you’re standing in a factory debating the merits of your battery tech with the founder of the biggest EV battery maker in the world, I imagine it’s a bit more toe-curling.
Musk appears to have found himself in just such a situation back in April, when he visited Robin Zeng at the CATL facility in Beijing (via Reuters). According to Zeng, he told Musk that his bet on the cylindrical battery found in the Cybertruck, the 4680, “is going to fail and never be successful.”
“We had a very big debate, and I showed him”, Zeng said. “He was silent. He doesn’t know how to make a battery. It’s about electrochemistry. He’s good for the chips, the software, the hardware, the mechanical things.”
Zeng didn’t stop there, either. According to the company founder, he then moved on to question Musk’s approach to product timelines.
