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Tesla, Panasonic Are Freezing Plans To Add More Battery Production Lines At Gigafactory (techcrunch.com)
Tesla and Panasonic are reportedly freezing their plans to add more battery production lines at Gigafactory 1, its massive factory outside of Reno, Nevada that is a cornerstone to the automaker's business. "The partners had planned to increase capacity by 50 percent next year, but financial problems have forced a rethink," reports TechCrunch, citing a report from Nikkei. "Nikkei also reported that Panasonic was suspending a planned investment in Tesla's automotive battery and EV plant in Shanghai." From the report: TechCrunch confirmed that Tesla is not adding more battery production lines and will instead focus its efforts on existing equipment. Tesla stressed that it will continue to make new investments as needed into the plant. However, the automaker noted that attention and investments might be focused on improving existing equipment to increase battery cell output.
As of November, Panasonic had 11 production lines operating at Gigafactory 1. Panasonic president President Kazuhiro Tsuga told Bloomberg that the company planned to add two more lines by the end of the year to bring total capacity up to 35 gigawatt-hours. The last number shared by Tesla is from July when the company reported an annualized run rate of 20 gigawatt-hours of capacity. It's not clear if those two production lines were added. "We will of course continue to make new investments in Gigafactory 1, as needed. However, we think there is far more output to be gained from improving existing production equipment than was previously estimated," a Tesla spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.
As of November, Panasonic had 11 production lines operating at Gigafactory 1. Panasonic president President Kazuhiro Tsuga told Bloomberg that the company planned to add two more lines by the end of the year to bring total capacity up to 35 gigawatt-hours. The last number shared by Tesla is from July when the company reported an annualized run rate of 20 gigawatt-hours of capacity. It's not clear if those two production lines were added. "We will of course continue to make new investments in Gigafactory 1, as needed. However, we think there is far more output to be gained from improving existing production equipment than was previously estimated," a Tesla spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.
Panasonic doesn't have a problem partnering with Toyota.
It's hard to claim that is a "Partnership" when it was really Toyota panicking and wanting to be able to move faster on electric cars.
It was also an earlier phase of Panasonic lowering the integration with Tesla, as what the Toyota deal did was move ownership of five Panasonic battery manufacturing facilities in China and Japan to the new combined battery entity jointly owned (49% Panasonic and 51% Toyota), in the process reducing the exposure to Panasonic if the electric car battery market does not grow as expected... which Panasonic is saying now, it will not.
You really must learn how to read "partnering" agreements to understand what is really going on, but then coming from a Tesla hater it's no surprise you aren't really understanding the car, or the car battery market and where the payers are at...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Q2 Tesla deliveries are going to be even worse, with Jaguar and Mercedes offering luxury electric vehicles that actually go through some form of QC before they're sold to the public.