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Comment by omarforgotpwd | Hacker News Reader

Tesla is actually starting to make cathodes in house via a dry process, which is why they are no longer buying cathode material from this supplier. Typical sloppy reporting from Electrek.

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> Tesla is actually starting to make cathodes in house via a dry process, which is why they are no longer buying cathode material from this supplier.

The latter part of this is speculative. Tesla may have begun shipping dry cathodes but it isn't clear that they're capable of matching the former third-party volume. Tesla would absolutely need the additional 4680 volume if Cybertruck sales were meeting their original projections (as opposed to now when they are ~an order of magnitude lower).

The entire article is speculative.

The poster to which I responded and the article are each speculating on the "why" for this contract. That said, we do not need to speculate about Cybertruck sales - Business Insider reported that Tesla sold only 5,400 of them in 2025Q3.

We know from this that they do not need the same level of third-party 4680 capacity, and (call it speculative if you so desire) this is the most parsimonious explanation for the L&F write down.

I agree about those facts that the companies themselves posted. But for journalism to occur my hope would be the author needs to find out what that means for Tesla instead of speculating. Perhaps if it was posted as an opinion piece.

There is plenty there “for journalism to occur” in terms of the write-down of the deal and Teslas current performance. It’s newsworthy in itself.

It's not journalism anymore when you take one fact and then use it as the basis for wild speculation.

I re-read it. Very little is speculative and nothing I’d label as “wild”.

It's 'wild' to this person because it challenges their opinion on Musk and Tesla I have to guess. This is a classic 'it is bad reporting because it does not agree with my worldview' take, aka 'fake news'.

Many other comments show that it is. One example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46423846

The one comment suggests a valid alternative. It doesn’t suggest that this was ‘wild’ reporting - which was your original point. The article still adds information, analysis, and not much speculation.

Citing Business Insider means nothing - you need to cite Business Insider's source.

I would say the article is speculative. My statement is based on information given at Tesla's shareholder meeting.

Vertical integration only makes sense if you're actually ramping output

I think the missing information here is whether there are plans to put the 4680 in vehicles that sell well.

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