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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.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
Fuck everyone else. It's just good business.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
They use giant sailboats to transport them from Japan to Seattle WA, and then they are carried by barrens of mules down to Fremont, CA
It will be interesting to see how the usual group of Musk trolls reconciles their desire to paint Tesla as a flop while grappling with data like this. They are selling product fast enough that they are causing battery supply disruptions.
they are carried by barrens of mules down to Fremont, CA
Tesla employees deserve more respect than that!
Let's see: company (Tesla) has more need for materials furnished by a partner company(Panasonic), so orders more and partner company supplies the extra materials. Other companies WITHOUT existing supply contracts whine about being unable to buy batteries from partner company. Isn't this at some level how basic capitalism works? It's not like there aren't other battery suppliers and - yes! - demand is skyrocketing. Welcome to the real world.
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.
Wait, so the claim is that Tesla could be CAUSING a shortage?
How are they causing a shortage? By buying up all the batteries they can get.
Why are they buying up batteries? To eliminate their manufacturing problems.
What were the manufacturing problems they were having? They couldn't get enough batteries.
Oh yeah, that makes total sense. It's not a battery shortage causing Tesla to buy up batteries....it's Tesla buying up batteries that is causing a shortage.
Long answer, yes
But the truth wouldn't generate a click bait headline
If they used NiCd a Model S would weigh 8 tonnes.
On the plus side, it could qualify as a moving Superfund site.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Journalists use language like that when they don't have any facts to back it up.
The facts are Tesla no longer use the same sized batteries as other products, like laptops do, in their new models.
I don't see how draining stockpiles of 18650 cells would help them manufacture their cars that require 2170 cells.
A more likely story is that Panasonic has halted production of 18650 cells to manufacture 2170 cells instead, while keeping enough capacity to honor existing customer contracts.
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!
No difference?
If the raw materials are being mined in China, it;s not really going to make much difference if they're manufactured in Japan or USA, at the end of the day there is still a ship going across the Pacific Ocean.
It could even have less impact, if the end product is lighter and/or smaller than the raw materials.
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.
Look, I have news for you, there are about 20 decent battery technologies that are cutting edge right now. We had a battery technology research conference here this past summer at the UW. There are many flavors of battery types, and I'll be honest with you, they all work fairly well.
A shortage of a specific type of battery materials in a specific country does NOT mean that you have shortages worldwide, nor does it mean that you can't use any of the other very good battery tech instead.
Stop panicking. We need the batteries for our new fusion reactor balancing systems. That's why you're seeing shortages. It will be over soon, once the new fusion submarines and naval retrofits are complete. And, no, you won't see those commercially for another 25 years.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
anti-media
That is not, nor has it ever been - nor will it ever be - an insult. Perhaps think before you type?
The Daily Mail caring about the environment?
They don't care. The whole point of the article is to promote environmental nihilism and apathy. If 16 ships pollute more than a billion cars, and wind turbines kill birds, and bicyclists run over endangered insects, then clearly everything is equally bad and nothing matters and readers can continue to drive their SUVs guilt free.
They use giant sailboats to transport them from Japan to Seattle WA, and then they are carried by barrens of mules down to Fremont, CA
You mean high speed trains of mules. They go at least 20 mph.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Correct. They are very environmentally friendly if made in China, S Korea, and tons of places with cheap solar and wind energy. They are very environmentally friendly almost anywhere in the West or Texas or the NE.
Now, if you made them in the South, they're not quite as good. Which is why nobody does that. But if you build a Dark Factory that operates 24/7/365 in the dark with full automation, even with coal as an input, they are much more environmentally friendly. Which is most of the new factories in the South.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Cobalt is mostly a byproduct of open pit copper and nickel mining, and little mining is done specifically to extract cobalt.
While true, there is more to the story. 15% of US cobalt production is already from recycling. Also there is the Idaho Cobalt Project (ICP) that already has permits for a primary-source cobalt mine in Idaho, which should go online imminently. It is owned by a Canadian mining company. They're expecting 1500 tons/yr for 12.5 years.
The most important thing though is that cobalt is totally recoverable, in the future most of it will come from recycling.
There is evidence that Apple is hogging the world's supply of overpriced bullshit.
Seriously, when Apple ties up these exclusive contracts for its 4k displays, it's considered great business. If Elon is really hogging the world's supply of batteries, then one would expect to see the price of batteries to go up instead of down.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ocean shipping is dirty as hell!
But still negligible compared to the environmental value of the electric car.
The stupid "it takes carbon to make it" argument is a cookie-cutter way of trashing any manufactured product. That's why Greens always use it against some technology when they have run out of other arguments.
Yeah, buying batteries available on the open market, gassing 6 million Jews and starting a war that killed over 50 million other people... basically the same thing.
FYI you are a moron.
The carbon cost of this car is still far less than a vehicle that spews carbon out through the process of normal operation. If recharged with renewable energy, it is essentially a fixed value except tires and moving part lubricant. Even if charged with "fossil energy" the generation of that energy will be more efficient in extracting the energy from the fuel than a car engine would be, making the carbon footprint less.
A car with a petrol / diesel engine will use more lubricant (more moving parts), the same or more tire wear depending on traction control, drive train type, and engine size; and it will use far more petroleum products as engine oil, power steering fluid, brake fluid, transmission oil, and fuel.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Wait, what? I thought electric vehicles didn't have a transmission.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
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.
If we tax carbon output in the USA, and China does not, then we'll see more steel being shipped from east Asia. We get to see more carbon emissions, both from production and transportation, and higher steel prices on top.
YAY!
Maybe, instead of taxing carbon and mandating the use of expensive and unreliable wind and solar, we allow industry the freedom to find their own ways to reduce carbon and the cost of energy. That means less CO2 output, cleaner air, higher wages, more jobs, and perhaps those ships start hauling steel from places that take clean air seriously (like the USA) to places that don't (like China). I know that there's one clean energy technology that's had it's nutsack nailed to the floor for 40 years. How about we stop taxing the poor and giving to the rich so they can buy new electric cars and let industry loose to make some clean energy? Can we at least try? Just for, I don't know, another 3 years or so? What's that you say?
YES WE CAN!
I thought so.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
So, I'm reading all these Slashdot comments, and just am amazed at one thing that wasn't even close to true even ten years ago.
Not only do Republicans appear to hate the environment, they clearly hate basic capitalism too.
I would make a Russian communist joke starting with "Da comrade..." but given what's in the news, am worried it might be confused with a real critique.
>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.
Chinese factory owners must be happy
Dec 3, 2017
Yesterday was the monthly moment of truth for automakers in the US. They reported the number of new vehicles that their dealers delivered to their customers and that the automakers delivered directly to large fleet customers. These are unit sales, not dollar sales, and they’re religiously followed by the industry.
Total sales in November rose 0.9% from a year ago to 1,393,010 new vehicles, according to Autodata, which tracks these sales as they’re reported by the automakers. Sales of cars dropped 8.2%. Sales of trucks – which include SUVs, crossovers, pickups, and vans – rose 6.6%. Strong replacement demand from the hurricane-affected areas in Texas papered over weaknesses elsewhere. As always, there were winners and losers.
And one of the losers was Tesla.
First things first: There is nothing wrong with a tiny automaker trying to design, make, and sell cool but expensive cars that a few thousand Americans might buy every month, and trying to do so on a battleground dominated by giants. Porsche has been doing that for years. Porsche AG is owned by Volkswagen AG, which is itself majority-owned by Porsche Automobil Holding SE. Tesla is out there by itself.
And Tesla has put electric vehicles on the map. That was a huge feat. EVs have been around since the 1800s, but given the challenges that batteries posed, they simply didn’t catch on until Tesla made EVs cool. Yet Tesla has to buy the battery cells from battery makers, such as Panasonic.
Tesla isn’t quite out there by itself, though. The Wall Street hype machine backs it up, dousing it with billions of dollars on a regular basis to burn through as fast as it can. This masterful hype has created a giant market capitalization of about $52 billion, more than most automakers, including Ford ($50 billion). It’s not far behind GM ($61 billion).
But Tesla – which lost $619 million in Q3 – delivered only 3,590 vehicles in November in the US, down 18% from a year ago.
There are all kinds of interesting aspects about this.
One: 3,590 vehicles amounts to a market share of only 0.26%, of the 1,393,010 new cars and trucks sold in the US in November. Porsche outsold Tesla by 55% (5,555 new vehicles).
Two: Tesla doesn’t report monthly deliveries. It wants to play with the big boys, but it doesn’t want people to know on a monthly basis just how crummy and by comparison inconsequential its US sales numbers are. Opaque and dedicated to hype, it refuses to disclose how many vehicles it delivered that month in the US. So the industry is estimating Tesla’s monthly US sales.
Tesla discloses unit sales data in its quarterly earnings reports, long after everyone has already forgotten about the months in which they occurred.
Three: So how are Model 3 sales doing? Since Tesla doesn’t disclose its monthly deliveries in the US, the industry is guessing. The assembly line still isn’t working. “Manufacturing bottlenecks,” as Tesla calls it, and “manufacturing hell,” as Elon Musk calls it, rule the day.
In Q3, Tesla delivered 220 handmade Model 3’s. In October, it delivered about 145 handmade units. In November, the assembly line still wasn’t assembling cars. Inside EVs estimates that Tesla delivered a whopping 345 units in November.
Four: This is where hype goes to die. In February 2017, Tesla hyped these Model 3 production numbers for 2017:
Our Model 3 program is on track to start limited vehicle production in July and to steadily ramp production to exceed 5,000 vehicles per week at some point in the fourth quarter and 10,000 vehicles per week at some point in 2018.
November is solidly in the fourth quarter. 5,000 vehicles per week would mean over 20,000 a month. OK, this is November and not December, so maybe 4,000 a week for a total of 16,000. We got 345.
Even if the estimate of 345 is off by 100 units up or down, it doesn’t even matter. And December isn’t l
Auschwitz concentration camp Poland, years 1948-1989 the official camp plague said- "four million people suffered and died here at the hands of the nazi murderers between the years 1940 and 1945"
Unfortunately a lot of people have only heard about Auschwitz. It wasn't the only concentration camp.
Do you have any idea how much CO2 a mule produces?
So, I'm reading all these Slashdot comments, and just am amazed at one thing that wasn't even close to true even ten years ago.
Not only do Republicans appear to hate the environment, they clearly hate basic capitalism too.
Republicans have always, repeat always been against free market capitalism. They say they want small government, and for it to stay out of businesses' affairs, and then they pass assloads of laws designed specifically to give the advantage to one business or another. When they say they are against the Democrats interfering in the way businesses are operated, they mean that it's affecting their ability to do the same, not that they are opposed to it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ahh.. the Daily Mail - a source so reliable Wikipedia have stopped using them.
You wouldn't want to breathe the exhaust from a container ship, but as others note, at sea it's not much of a concern. If you happen to be on a cruise ship though, things are rather different.
Treblinka? Belzec? Chelmo? Dachau? Buchenwald? Janowska? Majdanek? Bergen-Belsen?
None â" they use electric mules.
If left to their own devices, no. But "if you don't clean up your room, I'm going to do it for you," might. Tell them what they have to do and the time frame. Tell them the day after the deadline, and if it isn't met, that they will be taxed at a sufficient "cost plus" level to pay for it. They will find a way.
Are you contending that, left to its own devices, industry will to become cleaner and cheaper out of the goodness of their hearts?
No, I believe that industry will become cheaper and cleaner because people don't like doing business with businesses that offer expensive and polluting products when they have the freedom to choose cheaper and cleaner ones.
The government is the "commons" in this tragedy. Did you even read the web page you linked to?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I'm going to point out two things. First, Auschwitz was only one (although the most murderous) of the Nazi death camps, and Nazi murder was not limited to just the death camps. Second, people process wood and cloth into flat and flexible sheets, put them into packages that allow perusal of both sides of all sheets, and make small dark marks on the sheets (typically before the creation of the package), and these packages can be used to learn things from. Some of these will show all the details you want about Nazi murders.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Mules are often CO2-neutral, depending on where their food comes from. I'm more worried about methane production.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'd suspect that the environmental impact is mostly from the continuing harm, in which EVs are far and away the more environmentally friendly. Both EVs and ICE vehicles have to be manufactured, and this is going to cause some harm, but there's no obvious thing that would make the manufacture of EVs a lot worse than manufacture of ICE vehicles.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Carbon taxes are an efficient way of applying market forces to reducing CO2 increases. I'm not sure about the legalities, but imposing the appropriate taxes as customs duties for imported material is probably kosher.
I know you're a nuke monomaniac, but mandating one form of power plant is not a good idea. Use taxes to represent externalities, and let the market figure out how it wants to handle CO2 reduction. The market is VERY good at doing this sort of optimization.
Carbon taxes can be combined with cuts in other taxes to remain revenue-neutral, and to make sure the poorer people in general don't suffer.
We could discuss the proper regulatory environment for nuclear power plants, but that's another discussion.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Lots of people don't seem to notice the difference between an economic and regulatory environment that is friendly to business in general and one that is friendly to certain specific businesses.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I know you're a nuke monomaniac, but mandating one form of power plant is not a good idea.
Where did I say anything about mandating anything? I want people to have a choice. That's the whole point, choice. Unless I've missed something we will see ships propelled by one of three things right now, wind, fuel oil, and nuclear. I'm sure someone will show an experimental solar powered ship but if someone is going to cross the ocean with cargo there's really only three choices. We've mandated that people cannot choose nuclear. Fuel oil dominates, not because we want to pollute the environment but because it makes economic sense. If we tax ourselves into using windjammers then we've really hit a new low. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Use taxes to represent externalities, and let the market figure out how it wants to handle CO2 reduction.
Okay, so we tax fuel oil and the market figures out that nuclear power is the best way to reduce CO2 and still offer inexpensive and speedy (for a boat anyway) shipping. But we just removed that option by mandate? What happens then? It's no longer a tax to let the market decide, it's just a tax. Maybe that's the point, the government gets to raise taxes while making the people feel righteous about it.
Carbon taxes can be combined with cuts in other taxes to remain revenue-neutral, and to make sure the poorer people in general don't suffer.
Not only have you now just imposed a tax on goods shipped by sea you've now created a form of government dependence on the poor. We've now removed some of their choices too. Now they have the "choice" of going to the government to buy the products they need, or... there is no choice, they are dependent on the government. The government now "owns" the poor and can dictate their "choices" through these subsidies.
Do you think people honestly "choose" to pollute the environment? We're in this mess precisely because the government has mandated, taxed, and spent us here.
We could discuss the proper regulatory environment for nuclear power plants, but that's another discussion.
I'd like to discuss regulation. What we have is not regulation, we have a ban. I'd like to see some regulation, because that means that there is a civilian nuclear marine propulsion industry to regulate.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
China has actually been working pretty hard to bring down carbon emissions. They're uniquely susceptable to sea level rise thanks to the large population on the very low lying coastal plains and the leadership plays a long game when planning.
This is why so much renewables R&D is going on there and also why the chinese are investing so much into nuclear energy research (both fusion and fussion). They're not betting the farm on one technology, they're hedging by trying _everything_.
Bear in mind that the economic power of pretty much all nations can be measured in their access to cheap energy. Whilst the USA has been expending more and more resources to maintain its oil addiction, if the chinese investment works out, they'll be supplying cheap, safe nuclear power (Molten salts, not your grandfather's steamer) all over the world.
The importance of that can't be understated. If the developed world stopped using carbon overnight, the developing countries could easily make up the entire difference and then some in their efforts to play catchup. It's not in anyone's interest to prevent them playing catchup, but neither is it in anyone's interest for carbon to be the cheapest way of them doing it.
anti-media
That is not, nor has it ever been - nor will it ever be - an insult. Perhaps think before you type?
Perhaps think of considering it might be sarcasm? Or was your comment sarcasm, and I cluelessly mistook it for cluelessness?
Oh, let's not go any further down that rabbit-hole.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
The idea behind the carbon tax is to internalize an externality and let the market decide what to do. If nuclear power plants are then the cheapest, we get nukes. If solar power and wind are the cheapest, we get solar and wind. The market is far better at optimizing than you or I are.
The reason we're in this situation is that burning fossil fuel is a cheap way of generating energy, and fossil fuels are a very convenient way to create mobile energy sources for use on vehicles. The government is not involved in making that so. The market fails because the people making the decisions pay only a small amount of some of the costs they generate. People chose to pollute because it was the cheapest thing to do. We have seen that time and time again, and the only effective way to stop that is government action.
I fail to see why reducing taxes on certain people, or letting the market do things, is supposed to cause dependence on the government.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes