At Current Rates, Tesla Could Soon Suck Up Worldwide Supply of Li-Ion Cells 351
cartechboy writes "Lets just say Elon Musk may need to go battery shopping, like, big-time. Here's some little-understood Tesla math that could turn the global market for cylindrical lithium-ion cells upside down by 2015. It turns out the massive Model S battery takes almost 2,000 times the number of cells a basic laptop does. Assume Tesla just doubles production from its current 21K cars/year to 40K cars/year. (Something it expects to do by 2015). At that point, Tesla would require the *entire* existing global capacity for 18650 commodity cells. That assumes no other growth, no next gen model, nada. What should Elon do? Better get on the horn to Panasonic and Samsung."
Markets, how do they work? (Score:4, Funny)
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Make more?
Crisis solved. I will even waive my customary consulting fee.
Buying up all the cells. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:18,650? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:price competition via supply shortfall. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:price competition via supply shortfall. (Score:5, Funny)
The li-on is already in the car! It's a trap!
Re:price competition via supply shortfall. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: price competition via supply shortfall. (Score:2, Funny)
How much beryllium? That's one of the more toxic metals out there. It isn't going to sail if there's a lot of high-concentration beryllium involved.
Re:On the plus side... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it took me 2 seconds to type my question and get a response. That's 3 seconds I have to not be a smug asshole.
Re: price competition via supply shortfall. (Score:5, Funny)
Whoosh!
Tungsten-hydroxy-osmium-hydride? Sounds expensive!