Slashdot Mirror
Tesla On Track To Turn a Profit This Year (cbsnews.com)
Thanks to gains in Model 3 output, Tesla's second-quarter revenue grew by more than $1 billion. Unfortunately, the company's net loss rose dramatically as a result. In a statement, Tesla said it achieved its target of producing 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week and that it aims to make 6,000 per week by the end of August. It's expect to produce 50,000 to 55,000 Model 3 vehicles in the third quarter -- a sharp increase from the previous quarter.
"It took 15 years to execute on our initial goal to produce an affordable, long-range electric vehicle that can also be highly profitable," Musk and Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja wrote in a letter to shareholders. "In the second half of 2018, we expect, for the first time in our history, to become both sustainably profitable and cash-flow positive." Tesla has only turned a profit in two quarters. CBS News reports: The electric vehicle company founded by billionaire Elon Musk reported an adjusted net loss of $717 million for the period on revenue of $4 billion. Tesla went through $739.6 million in cash between April and June, less than the $900 million Wall Street analysts had forecast. In another boost, the automaker said it has trimmed its capital spending by manufacturing the Model 3 on existing assembly lines, rather than building new lines. Although Tesla is burning through less cash, it continues to lose money. The company reported an adjusted net loss of $3.06 per share, more than analysts expected. The loss more than doubled from the same quarter a year ago. Slashdot reader Rei adds: After the release of Tesla's Q2 results and followed by the investor call, Tesla's stock surged around 9% in aftermarket trading today. Among the main drivers: automotive gross margins rose to 21%, Model 3 gross margins turned positive (before the start of sales of AWD and performance variants, which are making up half of all new orders), and the reiteration and reinforcement of guidance for sustainable profitability from Q3 onward. [...] While no longer using a reservation system in the U.S. for first-production orders (retaining it only for less expensive Model 3 variants and overseas orders), new North American first-production orders are making up a large portion of current orders; consequently, no changes are announced for timing of overseas orders. The average selling price is expected to remain high "for several quarters" due to "a richer mix in the initial wave of Model 3 deliveries to Europe and APAC"; the "normalization of the Model 3 average selling price" is anticipated in the second half of 2019, and is not expected to impact gross margins, due to improved production cost efficiency over time. On the conference call, Musk sounded tired and admitted to getting too little sleep. He apologized twice, but was told by an investor: "Don't let the trolls get you down, but we do like it when you tease the trolls a bit."
"It took 15 years to execute on our initial goal to produce an affordable, long-range electric vehicle that can also be highly profitable," Musk and Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja wrote in a letter to shareholders. "In the second half of 2018, we expect, for the first time in our history, to become both sustainably profitable and cash-flow positive." Tesla has only turned a profit in two quarters. CBS News reports: The electric vehicle company founded by billionaire Elon Musk reported an adjusted net loss of $717 million for the period on revenue of $4 billion. Tesla went through $739.6 million in cash between April and June, less than the $900 million Wall Street analysts had forecast. In another boost, the automaker said it has trimmed its capital spending by manufacturing the Model 3 on existing assembly lines, rather than building new lines. Although Tesla is burning through less cash, it continues to lose money. The company reported an adjusted net loss of $3.06 per share, more than analysts expected. The loss more than doubled from the same quarter a year ago. Slashdot reader Rei adds: After the release of Tesla's Q2 results and followed by the investor call, Tesla's stock surged around 9% in aftermarket trading today. Among the main drivers: automotive gross margins rose to 21%, Model 3 gross margins turned positive (before the start of sales of AWD and performance variants, which are making up half of all new orders), and the reiteration and reinforcement of guidance for sustainable profitability from Q3 onward. [...] While no longer using a reservation system in the U.S. for first-production orders (retaining it only for less expensive Model 3 variants and overseas orders), new North American first-production orders are making up a large portion of current orders; consequently, no changes are announced for timing of overseas orders. The average selling price is expected to remain high "for several quarters" due to "a richer mix in the initial wave of Model 3 deliveries to Europe and APAC"; the "normalization of the Model 3 average selling price" is anticipated in the second half of 2019, and is not expected to impact gross margins, due to improved production cost efficiency over time. On the conference call, Musk sounded tired and admitted to getting too little sleep. He apologized twice, but was told by an investor: "Don't let the trolls get you down, but we do like it when you tease the trolls a bit."
There are a lot of very big investors short Tesla. The carnage will be felt intensely.
Didn't you hear? They're adding Atari games to the in-car display. That's money.
Tesla On Track To Turn a Profit This Year
Unfortunately, the company's net loss rose dramatically as a result.
So sales are up, losses are up - but they're on track to make a profit? Really? Something's not adding up... Losses for Q1 2018 were 17.5% of revenues. Losses for Q2 2018 (just announced) were 17.9%. Increasing losses as a percent of revenue does NOT lead to profit.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Where you live, perhaps that's a defensive way of describing 'other parts of the world.'
Las Vegas.. its pretty shitty.
So sales are up, losses are up - but they're on track to make a profit? Really? Something's not adding up...
What's not adding up is that you're conflating recurring and nonrecurring expenses (NREs).
If all the money being spent now were recurring expenses - the money you spend on making a car in Q2 that you'll have to spend again to make another car in Q4 - then you'd be right.
But a LOT of that money is being spent on putting together the plant to make the cars. You do that once. Then you don't have to do it again (beyond maintenance as stuff wears out and the like).
Or at least you don't have to do it again until you EXPAND the plant to INCREASE PRODUCTION or BUILD ANOTHER TYPE OF CAR. (Guess what Tesla has been doing...) That's why companies have to spend a lot of money - that they get from investors - when starting up, that they don't earn back right away.
Their balance sheet for the quarter includes both the REs and NREs. If you allocate it ALL to the current production of cars, and project that into the future, you'll be 'way low on the bottom line once the NREs have been paid off and the plant is still making cars.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Mr. Musk, Given that Tesla has burnt through over 3 billion dollars wouldnâ(TM)t it have been cheaper to buy a small auto plant (or even a whole company) instead of re-inventing the assembly line from scratch?
yeah, right. a report from an opponent of renewables who reports of behalf of major utility and fossil fuel interests like Exelon; Occidental; Duke Energy; and FirstEnergy to name a few
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Turns out they are really healthy and churning out delicious eggs at an increasing rate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
TSLA shorts were all betting Tesla could never make cars at volume with any margin. Turns out Tesla figured out production while still keeping a large margin....
So Tesla is the obvious Apple of cars now. This is roughly equivalent to the point when the first iPhone came out.
So, TSLA shorts are fucked, seriously fucked, like federal prision child sex offender fucked.
And there as so many shorts, it will take a long time to complete the fucking with some absurd things to come because of that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yep, you should have told it to Amazon (AMZN), that they should have started making profit from year 1, instead of them losing money by stupidly spending it on useless stuff like expanding their infrastructure (and basically becoming THE CLOUD since then)~~
I'm sure, If they had listen to you they would have been successfuly instead of going down crashing and flaming as Tesla motors (TSLA) is going to do any moment soon !~~
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Tesla: NY Post article accusing Elon Musk of fraud is a total fraud
That article has been ridiculed so many times. Want more examples? Let me know when you're done with that one.
But golly gee, you're right about him being our God! Why, it's the ONE TRUE RELIGION! We have far more proof of our savior than any other religion, you know! (/snark)
Assuming ethanol comes from murdered children and the hydrogen from magic, hydrogen saves 132% more lives than ethanol.
If you want to call costing twice as much as conventional vehicles that are otherwise in the same or similar class based on size and general exterior asthetic "affordable"... sure.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
yeah, right. a report from an opponent of renewables who reports of behalf of major utility and fossil fuel interests
Is it really? I took a look at the Wikipedia pages of each company to see what kind of investments these companies have.
like Exelon;
They sold off their holdings in coal. They have huge investment in nuclear and hydro. Bought up a bunch of wind and solar projects. Stands to benefit greatly from carbon cap-and-trade.
Occidental;
Sold off all their holdings in coal 25 years ago. Produces a lot of natural gas, which would be needed as backup power for wind and solar, and therefore would benefit from expanded wind and solar investment and government subsidies.
Duke Energy;
Does own a lot of coal generation. Owns a lot of nuclear, including a site for which they were issued a license for a new plant in 2016. Owns a lot of hydro, including pumped hydro storage. Just completed a big solar power farm in 2017. Is in a good position to gain from carbon cap-and-trade.
and FirstEnergy to name a few
Has large investments in coal and nuclear power. Filed for bankruptcy and asked for federal intervention to prevent closure of some of its coal and nuclear power plants. Announced plans to close a large coal fired power plant as well as several nuclear power reactors. Of the companies you mentioned this appears to be the only one that has any reason to oppose renewable energy. Even then it's been trying to "greenwash" it's image by converting coal plants to biomass, made investments in experimental carbon sequestration, and made plans to re-power nuclear power reactors.
All these companies would see more profit from increased electricity usage from electric cars. Occidental stand to profit either way since they have investment in oil and natural gas. First Energy would be the biggest loser from reduced electric vehicle subsidies as they risk going out of business if people aren't buying enough electricity to keep their nuclear power plants open. It seems odd for companies that rely so heavily on low carbon electricity for their income to fund a report that encourages people to buy fossil fuel burning cars instead of electric ones, discourage government subsidies in energy from wind and sun, and highlights the benefits to air quality from improved internal combustion engines.
I'd expect these companies to want a report that goes into detail on how to reduce CO2 and air pollution from investments in electric vehicles powered by new nuclear, extending the life of existing nuclear, expanded use of wind and solar, and the need for pumped hydro storage and clean(er) natural gas to moderate the intermittent nature of renewable energy.
I'll put it another way, do you have a better report I should read?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
So sales are up, losses are up - but they're on track to make a profit? Really?
I haven't looked carefully at their financial statements but situations like that happen pretty often. What I suspect in this case is that Tesla has a lot of one time expenses during the quarter during ramp up which will not repeat in future quarters. So it makes the financials look worse during the current quarter than is expected for future quarters. There also are issues of inventory - you make the product and then deliver it but until Tesla gets paid for the car they have tied up cash (costs) in inventory. Cash flows in companies are very often quite lumpy and costs do not always track neatly with revenues.
Remember that there are a lot of fixed costs to running an assembly line. Fixed in this case means that they have to pay the same large amount regardless of how many vehicles they produce. A fixed costs is the same regardless of whether you make 1 unit or 1 million. So Tesla incurred a large fixed expense in building the Model 3 production system but until they can get the run rate high enough they cannot amortize this over enough vehicles to make a profit. As their production rate climbs their unit cost per vehicle will fall. Basically Tesla has to increase their gross margin on the Model 3 which will happen naturally if they can continue to increase their production rate and increase efficiency of the production lines. In the mean time their losses will look short term larger but should in future quarters behave exactly as Tesla indicates - IF they can execute the plan, which isn't a trivial concern.
Fun fact: Tripp has denied both knowing how to code or use any sort of hacking tools. Funny story, people dug into his claims and found his Stack Overflow account, Adafruit acccount, Scribd, etc, and found that not only does he know how to code, he was even helping answer coding questions for others.
Trip responded by deleting all of his old accounts.
Fun fact #2: Want to take a guess as to the only other thing on his Scribd account apart from docs on packet sniffing tools and the like? If you guessed "NRA gun documents, you win a prize!" When asked about this, he had the most hilarious alibi ever: why, he was only had the NRA gun docs to trade for Kansas guitar tabs! Because that's a totally normal internet trade commodity, dontchaknow!
Fun fact #3: Tripp has gone back and deleted all of his old alibi tweets, and the tweets where he admitted to having Tesla property.
Assuming ethanol comes from murdered children and the hydrogen from magic, hydrogen saves 132% more lives than ethanol.
Don't know if you have been in the business world, but capital is depreciated over the usable life of the investment.
Accountant speaking here. No capital investments are decidedly NOT always depreciated. In fact most companies prefer to avoid depreciating assets when they can avoid it. (depreciation does not always accurately reflect economic reality) Plus even if you do have a large amount of capex with depreciation attached there often are current period expenses attached to it that are not depreciated. For example if I buy a large press I would depreciate the press but I might not depreciate the cost of the riggers to place it, the upgrades to the electrical system to run it, the training of the labor to operate it, the slow productivity at first while we figure out how to use it, the extra workers hired to operate it, the engineers time to get it working, etc. It's not uncommon to have more costs that aren't capitalized (and thus depreciated) than the ones that are capitalized.
I think you are missing the point - a loss is a loss in Wall Street reported earnings. Special one time stuff is often very well called out.
This isn't special one time stuff for the most part and if you actually read their financial statements you would know that.
Wheeling out a ton of cash now in the build up for something in the future would be a footnote on current earnings.
Have you actually read Tesla's financial statements including the footnotes? They actually talk about issues relating to gross margin which basically are amortization of fixed costs from the assembly line and productivity improvements. They have this new and expensive assembly line which A) isn't running at full speed yet and B) costs a lot to operate no matter how many vehicles they make. Until they can amortize the fixed costs over enough cars per unit time they are going to lose money.
I truly admire this (or any other EM) company's ability to say "look over here, don't look at reality".
You might actually consider figuring out what reality actually is before making judgements about it. Tesla's situation isn't an uncommon one, just more high profile than most.
Number of units produced has no direct linkage to where market cap should be; rather, market cap *should be* (and I’m not saying *is*) linked to expected profits.
There is no plausible scenario whereby Tesla will make enough profit in the next 5 years to justify their current market cap by any reasonable valuation. I'm not saying they won't be worth that amount someday. But currently their market cap is detached from their economic reality. You just can't rationally expect a decent ROI on the stock if you buy it today at the current price. You're just gambling, not investing. Tesla having a market cap larger than GM is basically saying that you expect the net present value of all future Free Cash Flows to Tesla to exceed GMs. There is no rational basis to make this argument today given the ambiguity of cash flows further than 5 years out from today.
In any case, I’m a believer in this company. I have no problems with them recording losses in the mid term due to capital investment in order to have a long term payout. Whether it’s truly worth its current share price, I’m uncertain.
I feel similarly about the company but I'm quite certain that while it may be a good company it's a terrible stock at current valuation on a risk adjusted basis. You can have a great company that isn't a good investment at this moment in time. If you buy it today you are basically betting that an almost certainly overpriced stock is going to get even more overpriced in the near future. Maybe it will but you have no rational basis to justify that happening.
Sure, GM makes a lot of cars. But, there is no growth story for GM.
Probably true but there is a strong cash flow and dividend story from GM. It's hard to make a huge company a lot bigger in a short time period. But GM kicks off a LOT of profit and cash and the dividend yield right now is pretty good. A company doesn't have to grow at 20% or more per year to be a good investment.
But with Tesla, that's not just a possibility...its likely.
Sure, growing from tiny to bigger is a lot easier. But the value of a company should be roughly the net present value of all future free cash flows. There is no plausible scenario whereby you can make a rational claim that Tesla is going to kick off more free cash than GM within any time period not measured in decades. Even if Tesla has the best profit margins in the business (around 10% net) starting tomorrow it's still going to take them a LONG time to get anywhere close to a company the size of GM. Just because a company is a growth story doesn't mean we chuck all rationality out the window about its likely future prospects.
No other auto maker will be able to mass produce an EV in the next 5 years
I have a Chevy Bolt sitting in my garage that says otherwise. Nissan has sold over 300,000 Leafs to date. If that's not mass production I'm not sure you understand the term. Pretty much every major auto company already has put serious money into electrification but there still is a huge market (much larger than the EV market) in ICE vehicles for them to serve too. EVs are coming and I'm a true believer in them but it's not going to happen overnight and your claim that no automaker could mass produce an EV in the next 5 years is just clearly not true.
The reason for this is while the auto makers can make cars, they can't make the EV batteries.
There are plenty of battery companies and Tesla doesn't really make their own batteries either. Panasonic does the heavy lifting for Tesla on batteries. You were aware that Panasonic is the one that made the majority of the investment for the gigafactory right?
Finally, they don't have the knowledge of the battery chemistry to make those batteries efficient enough to sell them (or the EVs that contain them) at a profit.
You have your facts wrong on that. The big auto companies are working closely with battery makers and in many cases have strong partnerships. Tesla doesn't have the advantage here you seem to think they do at least not at the moment. Plus the state of the art in battery tech is progressing rather quickly so a lead today can evaporate tomorrow.
This is why Tesla has a huge multiple. Because even the most ardent Tesla Bear will admit that many people want an EV and will be buying them in the next 5 years.
I'm not a Tesla bear but there aren't nearly enough people likely to buy an EV in the next 5 years to justify Tesla's current market cap. Not even close. And I'm a huge fan of EVs and even own one. Tesla's stock price is based on hype and overinflated expectations. It happens sometimes. There was a lot of this during the dotcom boom circa 1999-2000. Eventually Tesla's stock price will come to reflect some sort of realistic expectation of their profit potential. But currently it is arguably a good company but a hugely overpriced stock.
Capital purchases don't have a huge impact on profits in the short term, although they do directly affect cash.
That's routinely not true. Capital purchases even when subject to a deprecation schedule can easily affect near term profits both directly and indirectly. For example a few years back our company bought a press for about $100,000. We then had to hire an employee costing about $50,000 to operate it, train the employee (more $), install the press (more $), reconfigure work flows and rearrange floor space, hire riggers, add electric service, add engineering time, and more. Even though we depreciated the cost of the press itself and some tooling, there were very substantial additional costs than cannot be depreciated that go with it.
Plus depreciation schedules vary and some of them are quite short which is often preferred by companies because deprecation schedules often don't very accurately reflect real world economic reality. If I outlay a bunch of cash for a machine then I'm out a bunch of cash for a machine and that should in many cases result in a hit to current period earnings even if GAAP dictates otherwise. I've often joked (semi seriously) that only an accountant would be foolish enough to think that inventory is an asset - in practical terms it's more akin to a liability because it ties up cash and other resources.
The cost of capital purchases are usually amortized over some period of time.
Capital purchases of tangible equipment are depreciated, not amortized. Functionally the same thing really but just being pedantic about the proper words. You would amortize an intangible asset like a patent purchase. Why they make the distinction has never been entirely clear to me since functionally it is the same activity. Finance and accounting are weird that way.
It's going to take a lot more than 15 years because at those prices, "affordable" does not apply.
#DeleteFacebook
Doxxing is digging into someone's personal info in order to attack them in real life. Googling their name and seeing that they have been programming for quite a while when they tell you they don't know how to hardly rises to that standard.
Assuming ethanol comes from murdered children and the hydrogen from magic, hydrogen saves 132% more lives than ethanol.
If GM took EVs seriously starting when they produced EV-1 and kept going until now, there would be no need for a Tesla.
Maybe. The EV-1 tends to get looked at with some rose colored glasses today and almost certainly was not a viable mass market car when it was available. I know it had some fans but it was the very definition of a niche vehicle and GM was losing a substantial sum on each one sold. The biggest problem was the battery tech simply wasn't there yet. The first commercial Li-Ion battery was released around 1991 and they weren't really ready for vehicle use when the EV-1 was in production. The lead-acid and later NiMh batteries in the EV-1 really weren't good enough. Battery tech is easily the most important thing when it comes to EVs and 20 years ago it just wasn't quite there. It's kind of unfair to GM to expect them to continue to produce a vehicle with little realistic chance of being a commercially successful vehicle. Not to say GM didn't bungle the whole affair (they clearly did) but I'm not convinced the EV-1 was the answer many people remember it to be. It wasn't at all obvious at the time that continued investment in EVs was worthwhile. It really only made sense as a technology development platform and needed to have a longer term outlook than GM is probably capable of.
That said, I agree that GM could have and probably should have continued to take the technology of EVs more seriously than they did. I own a Chevy Bolt and it's a terrific little car but I have to wonder how much better it could have been if GM had been working on it for another decade... Ironically if GM had just held out a few more years Li-Ion batteries became viable just a few years after the EV-1. I think the biggest mistake was probably in them going after a mass market car first rather than taking an approach closer to what Tesla ultimately did.
The fact that GM discarded any lead they might have had is more meaningful than how many internal combustion cars they can make.
That remains to be seen. Your argument is plausible but we won't know how important it will be for a few more years yet. Just because Tesla seemingly has the lead at the moment doesn't mean they will maintain that lead indefinitely. Lot of smart people work for companies not named Tesla and Tesla has seemingly proven that there is money to be had in EVs.
About those storage and wall batteries: That Tesla Wall thing isn't cheap as it uses just about the most expensive type of batteries on the market. Wouldn't it be a lot more economical to use cheaper but bulkier batteries, since space and weight are much less of an issue in that application?
Not currently no it wouldn't. Tesla is trying to get the unit cost of batteries much lower and to do that you need to make and sell as many of them as possible. The Powerwall just provides another sales channel to help them do this. In the long run it might not make sense to use Li-Ion batteries for this application but only once we've reached some sort of supply constraint. As long as Tesla can sell all the batteries they can make and don't run into resource constraints on the supply side it makes all the sense in the world to use the same battery cells everywhere they can.
True - if you play fast and loose with the definition of "affordable"... The base model is only "affordable" (under standard guidelines) to the 70th percentile (of average household income) and above. Basically, still a vehicle for the upper crust rather than one for the masses.
"Doxing (from dox, abbreviation of documents[1]) or doxxing[2][3] is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifiable information (especially personally identifiable information) about an individual or organization"
Finding posts on public forums is in no way "digging up private or identifiable information".
There was no "swatting". They received a threat that Tripp - a guy who had just sabotaged their systems, and had been repeatedly written up for anger issues - was dangerous. They reported it to the police. The police investigated and decided it wasn't at present a threat, and closed the case.
Every single party involved did their job correctly. Tesla security would have been utterly negligent not to report it. The police would have been utterly negligent not to investigate it.
And "shill"... I like the sound of that! I'd like to know where I can collect my check, though. I guess I am "paid" in the fact that as your short selling run collapses, my TSLA stock rises :) In that regard, I'm paid from the money you lost. How does that make you feel?
Guess a 9% rise last night wasn't good enough. Up to nearly 12% now :)
Assuming ethanol comes from murdered children and the hydrogen from magic, hydrogen saves 132% more lives than ethanol.
You have a Bolt. How nice...I have a Volt (its my second one). Neither are mass produced cars.
Strange. I thought I had actually stood on an assembly line in Lake Orion Michigan where they were made. Must have been imagining that. And unlike the Tesla assembly line, it's fully functional and they aren't scrambling to figure out how to make cars or making them in tents. The Bolt has installed and functional production capacity for theoretically as many as 90,000 vehicles per year right now. A car doesn't have to sell in F150 numbers to be mass produced. Your argument is ridiculous.
The Leaf sells in similar numbers to the Volt and Bolt.
The Leaf sold just over 3700 units per month last year and has a new and improved model out this year. It will be interesting to see what Tesla's sustained sales will be once they get through the initial bolus of orders. Hope they can keep it going but I think you'll see a bit of a slowdown.
If GM had really wanted to sell a lot of Bolts, they would have given it nicer styling and not made it look like a golf cart.
While I do think that Tesla has designed nicer looking cars, I disagree that the styling on the Bolt "looks like a golf cart". It's a hatchback and a decent looking one as far as those go. You're entitled to your opinion but people but your opinion on the aesthetics isn't universal. Personally I think the Bolt EV is quite sharp looking.
If you think the Bolt proves that GM loves EVs, then you don't understand cars at all.
I don't care if GM loves EVs or not. What it does prove is that GM can make a decent EV and that they have the ability to make more and that they are investing in electrification. What this will translate to in the long run remains to be seen. In the mean time I can get a Bolt TODAY from GM but if I want a comparably priced Model 3 I'm going to be waiting the better part of a year to get it in the best case. I'm a fan of Tesla but I'm not a blind fanboi either.
The Bolt is a car designed to fail. Also GM looses about $9,000 per car for both the Volt and Bolt.
And Tesla loses money on every car they sell thus far. What exactly is your point? The Bolt is basically a mass market test bed. Were you under the illusion that it was something else? It would only be a failure if GM ultimately fails to follow up with more and better EVs in the coming years. Whether or not GM makes a financial killing on the Bolt (and Volt) is almost irrelevant.
The battery chemistry used in the Telsa are special to Tesla and not owned by Panasonic or used by Panasonic's other customers.
Other companies use other chemistries and just because Tesla has their own special blend doesn't guarantee them market success. Tesla's strategy is sensible but it's not yet clear they can get enough of an advantage for it to make a difference in the long run. I hope they succeed but they do not have an insurmountable cost advantage at present and new battery chemistries could render whatever advantage they do establish meaningless almost overnight if they can't keep the pace.