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Tesla Could Be Hogging Batteries and Causing a Global Shortage, Says Report (gizmodo.com)
According to a report from the Korea news outlet ETNews, Tesla's solution to fixing a manufacturing bottleneck responsible for a $619 million loss last quarter could be causing a global battery shortage. Panasonic reportedly gave most of its cache of batteries in Japan to Tesla so that the automaker and Gigafactory 1 energy-storage company could keep up with its ambitious production schedule. Gizmodo reports: In early October, Tesla struggled with a "production bottleneck," but by the end of the month, Panasonic stated it would increase battery output at the Gigafactory, now that it understood the issues that led to the bottleneck and could automate some of the processes that had been done by hand. But this likely did not help Tesla fix any immediate shortage issues. ETNews claims that Panasonic is coping with the shortage by shipping batteries in from Japan. And many Japanese companies in need of cylinder batteries have turned to other suppliers like LG, Murata, and Samsung -- but those companies have not been able to meet the demands. Reportedly, companies that had contracts before 2017 aren't affected by the shortage, but several other manufacturers have not been able to place orders for batteries, and won't be able to order more batteries until the middle of next year.
As Electrec notes, it's almost impossible that this report is correct. Model 3 uses 2170 cells, not the standard 18650s, while Model X and Model S have always used imported cells, so nothing has changed there.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
What's the environmental impact of this battery manufacturing?
Compared to extracting oil from the Alberta tar sands, the impact is modest. Lithium is extracted from salt flats and underground brine, which are not ecological hotspots. Cobalt is mostly a byproduct of open pit copper and nickel mining, and little mining is done specifically to extract cobalt.
If they're being shipped from Japan to the US, then they'll have a higher carbon footprint due to being shipped across an ocean than batteries manufactured locally, no?
Not really. Ocean transport is very efficient, and adds little to the carbon footprint of these vehicles.
Are vehicles that use batteries like this truly more environmentally friendly
Yes, by a big margin.
The environmental impact of shipping a tonne of batteries from east Asia is the same as the impact of shipping a tonne of steel from east Asia.
And for the record: Model 3 SR is pretty much the same weight as the similar-sized, similar-accelerating BMW 330i. Model 3 LR isn't much heavier (and is faster).
Lastly: life cycle assessments aren't conducted by guesswork and speculation. They're done in peer reviewed studies. For example.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
When the very summary is wrong, where does one even start? "Most" cobalt is not in the Congo. The cheapest primary cobalt is found in the Congo, with the caveat that it's not been that heavily explored due to previous levels of demand (there's a new wave of exploration at present). Cobalt, however, is found in significant consequence everywhere that nickel, copper, and many other commonly mined metals are. Some places recover it in the tailings, but most don't bother because, again, historically demand hasn't justified it.
Cobalt isn't a rare metal. In the crust, it's 2-3 times as common as lead, 40% as common as copper, a third as common as zinc, etc. Nor is it "spread out"; as mentioned, it's associated with many commonly mined minerals.
As for mining in Congo itself: at least 80% is mined in big international mines with modern equipment and practices; how much "over 80%" is uncertain. The remaining percentage is so-called "artisinal mining" - improvised mines mined with manual labour and primitive equipment (aka, generally not very safe). Some are villages mining their own land, while others are outsiders exploiting locals. In the past year, there's been a big crackdown on artisinal cobalt, with major buyers taking steps to track the origin of their products better and keep it out of their product streams. Of course, one can always expect artisinal producers to try to do more to hide the origins of their cobalt, and/or sell to less scrupulous buyers (such as in China).
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
Ocean shipping is dirty as hell!
Container ships burn high sulfur bunker fuel, which produces lots and lots of sulfates, which are nasty pollutants ... ON LAND. But at sea, the sulfates settle onto the surface of the sea, where they have a negligible effect since the ocean already contains quadrillions of tons of sulfur.
Sulfur is a pollutant in the same way that salt is a pollutant: It depends on where you put it.