Tesla, Panasonic Are Freezing Plans To Add More Battery Production Lines At Gigafactory (techcrunch.com) 52
Tesla and Panasonic are reportedly freezing their plans to add more battery production lines at Gigafactory 1, its massive factory outside of Reno, Nevada that is a cornerstone to the automaker's business. "The partners had planned to increase capacity by 50 percent next year, but financial problems have forced a rethink," reports TechCrunch, citing a report from Nikkei. "Nikkei also reported that Panasonic was suspending a planned investment in Tesla's automotive battery and EV plant in Shanghai." From the report: TechCrunch confirmed that Tesla is not adding more battery production lines and will instead focus its efforts on existing equipment. Tesla stressed that it will continue to make new investments as needed into the plant. However, the automaker noted that attention and investments might be focused on improving existing equipment to increase battery cell output.
As of November, Panasonic had 11 production lines operating at Gigafactory 1. Panasonic president President Kazuhiro Tsuga told Bloomberg that the company planned to add two more lines by the end of the year to bring total capacity up to 35 gigawatt-hours. The last number shared by Tesla is from July when the company reported an annualized run rate of 20 gigawatt-hours of capacity. It's not clear if those two production lines were added. "We will of course continue to make new investments in Gigafactory 1, as needed. However, we think there is far more output to be gained from improving existing production equipment than was previously estimated," a Tesla spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.
As of November, Panasonic had 11 production lines operating at Gigafactory 1. Panasonic president President Kazuhiro Tsuga told Bloomberg that the company planned to add two more lines by the end of the year to bring total capacity up to 35 gigawatt-hours. The last number shared by Tesla is from July when the company reported an annualized run rate of 20 gigawatt-hours of capacity. It's not clear if those two production lines were added. "We will of course continue to make new investments in Gigafactory 1, as needed. However, we think there is far more output to be gained from improving existing production equipment than was previously estimated," a Tesla spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.
Thought end game for Gigafactory was home battery (Score:3)
That is a the big plan (Score:5, Informative)
the intermediate and long-term goal for the factory was to pump out high-capacity batteries that would let residential and commercial solar users finally get off the grid permanently
The PowerWall [tesla.com] is available already. And they have been used in large installations as well, in Australia and other places.
I've thought about getting one just for backup power for the house but it really makes more sense with a solar system, just waiting to see if solar shingles work out long term or what as I would prefer that form factor...
Re:That is a the big plan (Score:4, Interesting)
For cars and cell phones, energy density matters a lot. For stationary home and industrial scale installations, it matters much less. Are lithium ion batteries still the best choice for such applications? (For the purpose of this question, I'm only considering batteries. I am aware that there are many other industrial scale electricity storage technologies proposed or in use.)
yes and no (Score:5, Informative)
Lithium ion also has one of the highest potentials per cell so getting enough voltage to convert efficiently takes fewer cells, which also helps lower costs. And a major issue in utility needs is rapidly responding to loads and lithium batteries can easily do this.
In long run for longer term storage past a few hours, e.g. days or weeks of energy, we will need big flow batteries which decouple power from energy capacity.
For utility applications, maybe Aluminium-ion may prove less costly. Power isn't as good as lithium ion but may end up cheaper.
The cost of lithium ion batteries is to a major degree the nickel and cobalt. There's no fundamental physical necessity that those elements are used in batteries.
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For cars and cell phones, energy density matters a lot. For stationary home and industrial scale installations, it matters much less. Are lithium ion batteries still the best choice for such applications?
It depends on how you measure. If your primary consideration is TCO then yes. Otherwise, LiFePo4 is currently the best battery chemistry you can buy. It holds almost as much as LiPo, but it's as stable as NiMH, and it has as many charge cycles as Li-Ion. Unfortunately, it costs about twice as much as Li-Ion.
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Are lithium ion batteries still the best choice for such applications?
"Depends." I took a look at what I'd need for my house, and it's roughly three PowerWalls at around $20K or a shed full of Ni-C for $30K (plus shed, cabling, and charge controllers). I expect the PowerWalls to be useless in about ten years and the Ni-C option to be useless sometime after 2100AD.
I have the room for a shed but I could also put that extra $10K into more solar panels. Also, the opportunity cost of building the shed, main
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Bad for Panasonic, but neutral for Tesla... (Score:4, Interesting)
Panasonic ended up downgrading the demand from companies making electric cars.
But it's not like the demand for electric cars is getting any lower, interest is steadily climbing...
So even though Tesla loses some money from Panasonic, it probably is an indicator they have even a larger leg up on the electric car market than previously thought as car makers struggle to get near what Tesla is doing at scale.
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That was more Toyota panicking... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Panasonic doesn't have a problem partnering with Toyota.
It's hard to claim that is a "Partnership" when it was really Toyota panicking and wanting to be able to move faster on electric cars.
It was also an earlier phase of Panasonic lowering the integration with Tesla, as what the Toyota deal did was move ownership [cleantechnica.com] of five Panasonic battery manufacturing facilities in China and Japan to the new combined battery entity jointly owned (49% Panasonic and 51% Toyota), in the process reducing the exposure to Pana
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No, that's spin. You're making this really complicated, but in business often the simplest answer is the correct one.
Tesla's car deliveries in Q1 tanked. A week later, Panasonic decides investing more in growing Tesla's capacity isn't really necessary. It's pretty clear what happened: Panasonic is worried Tesla can't deliver any more, and when Tesla did deliver Panasonic lost money. They're seeing it as a losing partnership and are backing out.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/04/panasonic-stops-investi
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I'd hardly call more than 100% year-over-year growth "tanking". Most companies would LOVE to fail that hard. Yes, they missed Street estimates because of logistics problems overseas, but it happens. It definitely is not an indication of soft demand, as you seem to be implying.
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Panasonic's problem is that they concentrated too much on meeting Tesla's needs and the rest of the industry went in a different direction.
Tesla uses cylindrical cells. They are high quality and work great in high performance sports cars like the Roadster, but they are also more expensive. Most other manufacturers went with pouch cells, similar to what you get in mobile phones. Cheaper to produce, and more than adequate for 99% of vehicles.
Panasonic needs to pivot and build new factories making the cells th
Non tech news??? (Score:2)
1) Non tech-news at all. 2) boring as hell
Good grief, Batteries are the ultimate tech news!
If there was a BatteryDot I'd read that more often than SlashDot...
Our world depends so much on batteries these days...
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Batteries not included.
Re:let's see (Score:4, Funny)
... boring as hell...
No, that would be this one https://www.boringcompany.com/ [boringcompany.com]
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He said boring AS hell, not boring TO hell.
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Q2 Tesla deliveries are going to be even worse, with Jaguar and Mercedes offering luxury electric vehicles that actually go through some form of QC before they're sold to the public.
I know jack about Jags, but Mercedes is just another car. Has been ever since the 1990s. 1991 is the last time they overbuilt a car. Unless you're buying a UNIMOG, a Mercedes isn't any more reliable than anything else.
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> a Mercedes isn't any more reliable than anything else.
Unfortunately, that's a sentiment shared by many current E-class owners.
The cost-and-corner-cutting is real on these, too.
The EQC will be much "nicer" than a Tesla, for sure - but range remains a concern, as well as price and availability.
Also, no frunk and a smaller trunk apparently, compared to a Model X. And less range, less efficiency.
Compared to a five year old car.
I'm somewhat ready to pull the trigger on an E-class - but I'm also thinking of
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Jaguar are not known for their reliability either. Never have been. They have a luxury sporty brand, and to be fair the i-Pace is very nice. Horribly inefficient but it drives very well and is built to a way higher standard than anything Tesla produce, but if it's anything like their ICE cars then reliability will be just average and repairs will be extremely expensive.
Jaguar do over-the-air software updates too, meaning your car is forever in beta and half of it barely works. Their autopilot systems is pre
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with Jaguar and Mercedes offering luxury electric vehicles
What have *luxury* electric vehicles have to do with Tesla sales when Tesla is headed for mostly selling a consumer car? Do you think the people who want a Model 3 will buy a Jaguar instead? In what alternate reality?
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>> Model 3 is like a fucking Lada Granta on the inside.
No.
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Tesla has been heading toward a consumer car since it's inception.
So far, there's zero sign of them getting there. Model 3 was their attempt at making such a failure, and it ended up a luxury vehicle in terms of cost. They'll obviously keep on trying, but with failure of model 3 in this regard new try is unlikely for at least half a decade.
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Except the $35k M3 is never going to happen, which is why Tesla is doing everything in their power to keep people from trying to buy them. They can't sell them profitably at $35k, but they're desperate for cash which is why you can now "lease" one, except it's more like renting one because you have no option to buy at the end of the term. Tesla just wants those sweet customer deposits because they have a ton of inventory sitting around not making them any money.
You don't have to compare the high end model
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Gigafactory 1 plan (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'd wouldn't be surprised if there might be a technology timing factor involved in this as well. As in reserving some expansion for newer less fragile battery chemistry tech. None of the lithium-cobalt variants ever really made the grade.
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I don't get why everybody is acting surprised and spells doom and gloom.
Short trading . . .
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Indeed. I can't speak to how authoritative this is [electrek.co], but some choice parts:
I called this report questionable for a few reasons. Nikkei is generally a respected publication and they do seem to often have good sources, especially in the Asian business world and specifically in Japan, where Panasonic is based. But in this case, they don’t even cite sources and state everything as a matter of fact.....Also, the report states that Panasonic is suspending a planned investment in Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, but we didn’t even know that they planned to invest in Gigafactory 3.
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Has the Maxwell Technologies gone through yet? I thought it was still being talked about...
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What I've heard is that not enough of Maxwell's shareholders have signed onto the deal yet to pass the 50% threshold. And since TSLA stock has taken a beating recently, they may have to renegotiate.
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"35GW"
That's the correct unit but the wrong number. If they produce 35 GWh worth of battery capacity per year, that's 35 GWh/y or 0.0040 GW on average.
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More like culprit is the cell type being manufactured being rather useless for anyone but tesla. And for any supplier, it's a very high risk venture to produce a product that is only consumed by a single company that is in a questionable financial state.
So the ambitions are probably being scaled down to match the increasingly realized risk on Panasonic's side, as all other electric vehicle majors like BYD are going for pouch cells over cylindrical ones used almost exclusively by Tesla.
Shifting volume to China... (Score:1)
...so don't need expansion at GF1.
Ultimately it will all be China (decade) but in the interim the high-value can come out of the US.
All IMHO of course...