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>Tesla is a battery company What advantage do they have in battery tech that say, Panasonic (who provides their batteries), doesn't?

mr_spothawk 10y ago
Government backed/funded manufacturing facilities based in the US
abledon 10y ago
Tesla will be the owner of the gigafactory, a factory in which Panasonic will own a small portion of the manufacturing space inside. I suppose an advantage here is the willingness for the two companies to work together.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
Demand. No one is clamoring to buy Panosonic batteries. They are clamoring to buy Tesla vehicles (which so happen to require quite a few cells).
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Total Tesla sold battery capacity is about 10 GWh. For comparison, Nissan has sold 6 GWh, and Chevrolet has sold 2 GWh. But all are beaten by Toyota, who have sold more than 17 GWh in their hybrid vehicles. For further comparison, the total capacity of existing pumped hydroelectric storage plants is 740 000 GWh. (This puts plans of battery-based electricity storage in a rather harsh perspective.)
  - marvin 10y ago
    Do you have a reference for the hydroelectric storage number? Does this include hydroelectric dams without reverse-pumping capability, which still do have the capacity to perform fast grid leveling?
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectric... I believe this number only includes dams with reverse pumping. The global production capacity for all hydroelectric power is much larger, but it's not a widely used number, since you typically don't empty a reservoir due to the lower water having less potential energy. So this capacity number is a bit theoretical, since you wouldn't use it that way in practice. But then again, so is the capacity number for batteries, since you really want to avoid doing a full discharge. Annual global hydroelectric production is a more useful number, and is a little more than 4 000 TWh.
      - marvin 10y ago
        Cool, thanks. I wasn't aware that pumped hydroelectric had this great installed capacity. Those are very big numbers. Of course, it isn't an either/or proposition, since pumped hydroelectric is limited by geography. Battery-supported grid levelling can also be installed locally at each residential solar project, which makes adoption less of a political case.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    These things all have different growth rates. You might want to mention those, too.
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  >Demand. No one is clamoring to buy Panosonic batteries Tesla is.

mr_spothawk 10y ago

Government backed/funded manufacturing facilities based in the US

abledon 10y ago

Tesla will be the owner of the gigafactory, a factory in which Panasonic will own a small portion of the manufacturing space inside. I suppose an advantage here is the willingness for the two companies to work together.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

Demand. No one is clamoring to buy Panosonic batteries. They are clamoring to buy Tesla vehicles (which so happen to require quite a few cells).

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Total Tesla sold battery capacity is about 10 GWh. For comparison, Nissan has sold 6 GWh, and Chevrolet has sold 2 GWh. But all are beaten by Toyota, who have sold more than 17 GWh in their hybrid vehicles. For further comparison, the total capacity of existing pumped hydroelectric storage plants is 740 000 GWh. (This puts plans of battery-based electricity storage in a rather harsh perspective.)
- marvin 10y ago
  Do you have a reference for the hydroelectric storage number? Does this include hydroelectric dams without reverse-pumping capability, which still do have the capacity to perform fast grid leveling?
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectric... I believe this number only includes dams with reverse pumping. The global production capacity for all hydroelectric power is much larger, but it's not a widely used number, since you typically don't empty a reservoir due to the lower water having less potential energy. So this capacity number is a bit theoretical, since you wouldn't use it that way in practice. But then again, so is the capacity number for batteries, since you really want to avoid doing a full discharge. Annual global hydroelectric production is a more useful number, and is a little more than 4 000 TWh.
    - marvin 10y ago
      Cool, thanks. I wasn't aware that pumped hydroelectric had this great installed capacity. Those are very big numbers. Of course, it isn't an either/or proposition, since pumped hydroelectric is limited by geography. Battery-supported grid levelling can also be installed locally at each residential solar project, which makes adoption less of a political case.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  These things all have different growth rates. You might want to mention those, too.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>Demand. No one is clamoring to buy Panosonic batteries Tesla is.