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Panasonic Completing 3 New Cell Production Lines At Tesla's Gigafactory (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In a Tuesday interview with Bloomberg, the head of Panasonic's Automotive Division said that the company was on track to complete an additional three battery-cell production lines at Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory before the end of this year. That puts the expansion ahead of schedule for completion. Panasonic is a joint owner of the Gigafactory. The company provides the "2170" battery cells that go into a Model 3 battery pack. Tesla packages those cells to complete the pack. In the interview, Panasonic automotive executive Yoshio Ito told Bloomberg that "the bottleneck for Model 3 production has been our batteries." Ito added, "they just want us to make as many as possible."
In short, more battery cells rolling off more lines at the Gigafactory are good for Model 3 production only if the manufacturing process gets smoother. There's evidence that this is happening, as the company was able to sell more than 28,000 Model 3s in the second quarter of 2018, albeit at the slight expense of Model S and Model X production. The three new Panasonic lines will bring the number of cell-producing lines up to 13, Bloomberg wrote. Ito told the news service that Tesla is currently using all of its Gigafactory capacity to produce vehicle batteries, despite initially planning to reserve 30 percent of its capacity to build stationary storage batteries like Powerwalls and Powerpacks. That has played out in long-delayed Powerwall installations.
In short, more battery cells rolling off more lines at the Gigafactory are good for Model 3 production only if the manufacturing process gets smoother. There's evidence that this is happening, as the company was able to sell more than 28,000 Model 3s in the second quarter of 2018, albeit at the slight expense of Model S and Model X production. The three new Panasonic lines will bring the number of cell-producing lines up to 13, Bloomberg wrote. Ito told the news service that Tesla is currently using all of its Gigafactory capacity to produce vehicle batteries, despite initially planning to reserve 30 percent of its capacity to build stationary storage batteries like Powerwalls and Powerpacks. That has played out in long-delayed Powerwall installations.
Most everything (for a long time) used/uses 18650 battery cells which are 18mm in diameter and 65mm in height. 21700 battery cells (AKA "2170") are 21mm in diameter, 70mm in height and only made specifically for electric vehicles.
TL;DR: image comparison.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
We just had a Musk/SEC/Fraud thread, so I checked in here and was amazed to see about 7 posts and not one yet called Musk delusional. The haters are off their game I guess.
What I would like to know is:
1. Will the Model S and Model X ever get a retrofit to the 2170 battery type? What are the economics of this? Is there a reason now not to do it?
2. Is Tesla planning on selling these batteries to other EV makers?
3. How much of the production of the Gigafactory allocated to the Model 3 verses the power wall product?
Have no interest in buying at $280, so your premise is false. Even when it was in the $270s *without* this news I only made a small purchase. Why would I make a large purchase at a higher price after this news? My price points tomorrow will start somewhere around $265 and go down from there, growing in size the lower the price..
I don't act on small movements. I'm not a day trader. I buy when the stock is conveniently low. I sell - occasionally - when it's high due to good news that I think that the shorts will do a good job at FUDding down over the next several days. But for the most part, I hold until at least after the Q4 report.
"Who the hell is Nietzche? It's a question stupid people are asking." -- Newscaster, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
We just had a Musk/SEC/Fraud thread, so I checked in here and was amazed to see about 7 posts and not one yet called Musk delusional. The haters are off their game I guess.
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Calling people "haters" is a childishly simple-minded response to a situation that is far from black and white.
I watched the entire Rogan : Musk interview, and I don't think Musk is delusional, but I do think Musk is full of himself in a way that would cause some people to dislike him. Musk exudes the sort of arrogance that can literally cause some people to want to beat a person up. It's painfully obvious that Musk is _all about Musk_ despite all Musk's bullshit posing about "saving the planet".
I didn't hear one single thing during that interview that made me believe Musk is some kind of amazing genius. Musk is obviously well read, but I don't think he is nearly the genius that some people seem to think he is. I'd match wits with Musk any time, and I know a number of other people who could do so as well.
Musk is a skilled bullshitter and he can make himself appear to be a person who knows everything about everything, but if you have a good command of the subject Musk is discussing, it quickly becomes apparent that Musk is a person who has "book knowledge" which makes him appear to be an expert when the truth is that he is not.
Musk has repeatedly displayed VERY poor judgement, and two examples that come to mind are Musk calling the cave rescue guy a "pedo" and Musk's tweet about taking Tesla private. It's not clear if Musk has a self-destructive streak or if Musk simply has poor impulse control. It IS clear that Musk has serious issues relative to narcissism and his own ego and that he will lash out at people he perceives have insulted him, when a person who has better self-control might wisely choose not to comment at all.
Musk is a scam artist. PayPal was and is a business that smart people choose to avoid. Tesla cars are toys for rich posers, made by a company which is owned by a rich poser. I suspect the Space X stuff will fall by the wayside when Musk finds something else that amuses him. The tunnel thing was just a rich guy playing with big toys rich guys can afford.
I think Dean Kamen has done more for the world than Musk has done. Kamen created a portable dialysis machine that changed the lives of many people for the better. Musk has done no such thing.
If you are going to respond to what I wrote, at least make the effort to write something that is not childish.
Back before Black Tuesday people even took loans to buy shares. Hopefully Rei isn't dumb like that.
1) A shit load of welded/soldered connections to manage, which probably adds to the resistance of the final pack by some non-trivial amount.
2) Lots of smaller cells, each individually packaged, then packaged in a larger module and that module incorporated into the final pack. That sounds like the ratio of weight of packaging to weight of electrochemical material is pretty bad.
The situation with the new larger 2170 batteries is a bit better, especially on the total current output. But the issue with so many connections and total weight of packaging still seems high.
Can any one give me technical reasons why small cylindrical cells like this would be superior to pouch or prismatic cells? I always assumed that a good car battery would resemble the form factor of car starter batteries, big rectilinear shapes putting out decent voltage but a shit-load of amps. The only advantage I can think of for the cylindrical format is ease of roll to roll manufacturing. But even there, unless there is some problem with bigger cells (dielectric breakdown at higher amps maybe?) a larger cylindrical form would be better wouldn't it?
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