I don’t know how they are making money on this. I’m inclined to believe they’re losing money, or someone is somewhere in the line.
Maybe they expect those battery costs to decline rapidly in the near future?
What do you think?
https://electrek.co/2018/11/20/tesla-gigafactory-battery-cel...
If so, I would expect at least some of that better margin will flow into Panasonic’s pockets (what part, I wouldn’t dare even guess)
They have a contract with Tesla to produce for them, but Tesla’s demand is so high they can’t produce enough. Production is 24/7. Even if Panasonic wanted to they couldn’t sell to anyone else. I don’t know what kind of price negotiations they have, but current battery production is not profitable. This I know.
Also, Panasonic just partnered with Toyota to produce batteries for all their EV’s.
Additionally, the Gigafactory is just 1 battery production location. Panasonic has many. Some in the USA, and others in Asia. They sell their batteries to many companies. Just not the same ones they’re making for Tesla.
Don't they just need to keep leasing them more space at the factory? What's the bottleneck there?
There are currently 4 steps in the manufacturing process, with a final inspection at the end. They have about 35 production lines in total, and will likely have over 60 when they finish. New lines will have higher output.
They run two 12 hour shifts a day, 7 days a week.
The bottle neck is MRO at the moment. Material costs are a factor, but I know nothing about that.
In the space of 3 years they implemented these 35 lines. Getting them up and running to meet the demand and timelines required massive investment, and cost savings measures were sidelined.
They’re just not beginning to figure out ways to cut costs in order to achieve profitability.
I don’t know if Tesla has a contract that dictates the cell price, but I know Panasonic production is not profitable at the moment. They will be, hopefully in the upcoming years.
Their battery production is the most state of the art. Not only the battery technology, but the manufacturing process. It’s unparalleled by a long shot. The scale is breathtaking. Around 3.5 million cells a day with a target over 10 million.
From what I know, bottle necks are costs. High equipment manufacturing costs, and high maintenance costs.
Space isn’t the issue. They have plenty of space.
I know the Gigafactory battery production intimately. I can tell you they don’t cost less than $2.50 per cell at the moment.
> In a rare disclosure of Tesla’s battery prices, Musk said in June that his company’s costs for battery cells—the small cylindrical components of its battery packs—had dropped to $110 per kilowatt hour (kWh) and would reach $100 per kWh by the end of 2018. That compares with an average price of about $127 per kWh industrywide.
Wikipedia[1] says there are 2,976 in the mid-range pack and 4,416 cells in the long range pack.
If the short range has perhaps 2500, that's $6250
And it looks like 4,400 in the Model 3