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At this stage, no automaker will be able to seriously compete with Tesla without securing 50+ GWh / yr. in battery supply. Tesla’s lead in building such capaci

by danhak 8y ago

At this stage, no automaker will be able to seriously compete with Tesla without securing 50+ GWh / yr. in battery supply. Tesla’s lead in building such capacity is 3.5 years and counting. Bidding for for LG’s scraps is not a viable strategy. VW group has been leading the world in electric vehicle press releases while Tesla has secured control of half the world’s lithium ion battery supply and crushed every “Tesla killer” — Bolt, Volt, Leaf, i3, ELR - and is pulling away from the pack at an ACCELERATING pace. Time to put up or shut up.

cronix 8y ago
And that's in an environment where they are mostly prohibited, in the US, from having dealerships. It's quite a feat, actually.
- ummonk 8y ago
  Wait, what? How are they prohibited from having dealerships? If anything, the problem they have run into is that some states require them to have dealerships and sell through them instead of selling directly to the consumer.
  - belltaco 8y ago
    They probably meant having company owned dealerships.
  - cronix 8y ago
    Right. It's an ancient dumb law that seems pretty unique to this industry going way back. How many other industries are prohibited from having their own stores and selling the products they produce themselves? It's like telling Apple they can't sell their hardware at their own branded stores and must only sell them from 3rd party retailers - at an additional markup so the retailer can make a few bucks too. It's anti-consumer and anti-competitive. If Ford wants to open their own stores to sell their own cars (not "dealer franchises"), why shouldn't they be allowed to?
    - ams6110 8y ago
      It originated as protection for franchisees. Early on, manufactures didn't have the resources to set up dealerships everywhere they wanted to sell cars. So they used the franchise model. The argument is/was, that the franchisees needed protection so they could be assured that their investment in a property, facilities, and developing a market in an area could not be taken away by a manufacturer moving in with a company-owned dealership. Very similar to the complaints about Amazon moving in on sellers with their own products once they see what is selling well with independent sellers.
    - mcguire 8y ago
      Essentially all elements of civilization are path dependant.
symmitchry 8y ago
> VW group has been leading the world in electric vehicle press releases ha!
icelancer 8y ago
This is what I've been thinking for awhile. A huge number of the detractors predicted that Tesla would get crushed by commoditized goods that they spent the R&D dollars on, namely batteries. But I don't think the capacity is even remotely there for other manufacturers to come in and just buy up energy storage on the open market. Eventually it'll show up due to demand but the flywheel is slow to turn. I think a 3-4 year head start is about right and also in line with most technological head starts (Bezos famously talked about it some time ago and why AWS is the reason they are winning since it had no viable competitor for 7+ years), but like Amazon/AWS, if it takes any longer than that... you're handing Elon a huge amount of time.
- ams6110 8y ago
  > I don't think the capacity is even remotely there for other manufacturers to come in and just buy up energy storage on the open market If this is the case, doesn't it destroy the arguments of renewable energy advocates that "utility scale" batteries to store solar/wind energy are anywhere close to being realistic?
  - icelancer 8y ago
    In the short-term, I'd say so. But I think it's realistic on the timescale that people care about large-scale renewable energy, which is the end of my generation (30ish year old) and the middle of the next, so like 2040-2050.
BurningFrog 8y ago
I have to assume the VW people have thought of that as part of their plans to produce 200,000 vehicles (per year?).
notafraudster 8y ago
I think there's a great deal of uncertainty about whether lithium ion is the right solution or whether we'll be able to online solid-state batteries or other alternatives. So it's a situation where if lithium ion persists, Tesla gets huge dividends for early investment, and if alternatives come online, others get in on the ground floor and have a fighting shot. I have no idea how feasible non-LI batteries are in the medium future.
- prostoalex 8y ago
  How many other automakers are investing deeply into materials research? Toyota and Honda seem to be playing with fuel cells, everyone else in the latest headlines is just laying off people and trimming the product lines.
  - ilikehurdles 8y ago
    https://www.greentechmedia.com/amp/article/wv-quantumscape-investment https://www.greentechmedia.com/amp/article/wv-quantumscape-i... https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/2018/06/volkswagen-tests-quantum-computing-in-battery-research.html https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/2018/06/volkswagen-test... https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2015/12/10/ford-electrified-vehicle-battery-research.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2015... I’m sure there’s more but manufacturer after manufacturer is buying, investing in, poaching from, and acquiring EV/battery tech.
- coryrc 8y ago
  There is not uncertainty. Film-produced cells are sufficiently cost-effective now and their price is still dropping.
- r00fus 8y ago
  Well that's a nice diversion however do we have any credible hint that solid state batteries are a) viable and b) mass producible ? It's not like the late 00s where SSDs were viable but deemed not yet cost effective. Solid state batteries IIRC don't even have a proof of concept much less any adoption.
callalex 8y ago
If we're going to make fun of companies leading with press releases before actual product, we can't ignore the fact that Tesla has been pretending they can make a $35k car, when it has now been several years and their cars are nearly twice as much as that for the cheapest model.
- mikekij 8y ago
  Isn’t their cheapest model now $45k?
  - callalex 8y ago
    You can "preorder" it and give them that much money, but they will then follow up with you and tell you that you won't get your car unless you buy more upgrades to push yourself further up in the backlog. So realistically, you can't buy a car at that price.
    - InTheArena 8y ago
      Tesla has been upfront about saying they are still looking at next year for the 35k version. At now point, will they (or have they) told anyone that they won't get the car unless you buy the mid-range or the long range versions. I was a day one reservation holder, and have never received such a message. And also, you can't pre-order it - you can put the same deposit down, if you want, as everyone else - that's 1k, and can apply that to a LR/MR and in the future SR. Also worth noting, the MR and the LR have different inverters, with the MR sharing the same inverter as the SR. Winter is coming ;-)
      - hndamien 8y ago
        They weren't really upfront about this when they were taking preorders in 2016. And I say this as a Model 3 reservation holder, Model S owner and TSLA shareholder.
        InTheArena 8y ago
ForHackernews 8y ago
[Removed comment based on outdated sales figures]
- horseRad 8y ago
  Are you for real? Bolt outselling Model 3? That was numbers from last year.. For the record bolt seems to have peaked at 2000+ cars per month last year and decreased to under 2000 per month since. GM seems pretty content with that.
  - rohit2412 8y ago
    Or maybe the demand for EV seems to start and stop with Tesla. I wonder how Tesla will do without the lies and hype of futuristic self driving technology
- davidgould 8y ago
  That article is dated September 1, 2017. Last years news. This year, Tesla Model 3 is selling more than BMW or Mercedes cars in the US and ten times Chevy Bolt.
- tigershark 8y ago
  It’s a complete and utter trash/fake news. The Chevy bolt sold 1225 unit in August while the model 3 17800. So the model 3 is outselling the bolt almost 15:1. https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ Please verify your sources to avoid spreading misinformation.
sfcguyus 8y ago
Your comment sounds a bit like a gorilla pounding its chest. unfortunately it doesn't bear to reality. Regarding the press releases, Volkswagen is a bit more trustworthy than Tesla's.
- zeckalpha 8y ago
  Ahem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
  - josefx 8y ago
    In contrast to tesla they don't have an unfiltered musk on an official twitter channel. So their official statements are still closer to reality in the general case.
    - dmode 8y ago
      I mean they officially communicated their emission standards
Kurtz79 8y ago
Amusing that childish fanboyism normally reserved for things like Mac vs. Windows, AMD vs. Intel, PS4 vs Xbox, etc... has now spread to the car industry.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  People will fanboy about anything. It's our tribalistic nature.
- detaro 8y ago
  Hasn't that been a thing with car fans for longer than any of your examples exist?
- wil421 8y ago
  It’s the exact opposite. Fanboyism was much stronger in cars and always has been. Before any of those companies exist. Ford vs Chevy trucks. No car like Mopar. Think of the muscle car heydays of the 60s and 70s.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  It's been here a long time. Every car sub I subscribe to on Reddit is chock full of Toyota fanboys.
bryanlarsen 8y ago
At the rate China is building and planning to build battery factories, it's also quite possible there will be a glut and a price crash in a couple of years.
- 2sk21 8y ago
  A related question: if China builds battery factories, surely they would also build car factories to use those batteries. What would be the impact on Western car manufacturers? Would software increasingly become the key differentiator between car manufacturers?
  - cmrdporcupine 8y ago
    China is already leading the world in EV manufacturing and consumption. It's just that almost none of those vehicles will ever be exported. They're made for the domestic market. There's brands we never hear about here, pumping out pretty decent looking vehicles, but they're made for China.
    - bryanlarsen 8y ago
      BYD is now designing cars for North American safety standards: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/electric-car-ev-china-trade-1.4893737 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/electric-car-ev-china-trade...
  - jbay808 8y ago
    I'm visiting China right now; Chinese-made electric vehicles are absolutely everywhere. NIO in particular seems determined to challenge Tesla here and possibly worldwide. https://www.motortrend.com/news/nio-es8-challenges-tesla-model-x/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/nio-es8-challenges-tesla-mod...
pedrocr 8y ago
Tesla has done an amazing thing by showing that electric cars can match ICE ones and even be better than them in several regards. Before Tesla we all thought electrics were much more of a compromise. > Bolt, Volt, Leaf, i3, ELR - and is pulling away from the pack at an ACCELERATING pace But this is way too breathless. The Nissan Leaf is the best selling electric car of all time. They've sold 350k of them and by all accounts it's a very decent small car. And that's great for everyone because it pushes the infrastructure to adapt and creates the market. I expect Nissan-Renault to keep moving upmarket and Tesla downmarket to a point where we will be more or less fully served in 4 or 5 years. That wouldn't have happened as fast without Tesla but lets not ignore the existing manufacturers that have already done incredibly well on this and give them credit over the ones that are still sitting on their hands.
- ekr 8y ago
  > Tesla has done an amazing thing by showing that electric cars can match ICE ones and even be better than them in several regards. What? I've been following the market and Tesla has not brought no new innovation in any aspect of the car (engine, battery technology etc). They've just hired some great designers and invested a lot in marketing. You can't even say that their cars are competitively priced. I've seen way more innovation from Chinese electric car builders. Also, wrt to software, Teslas are basically hacked together, according to multiple reports and analyses, teardowns.
  - mft_ 8y ago
    I believe that their cars having a single central ECU vs. the general trend of multiple interconnected modules is fairly novel for a major car maker? Their battery technology is also years ahead of competitors, according to teardowns. Anyway... as with discussions of the iPhone ad infinitum, it's not about developing innovations de novo, but rather about taking different features and incorporating them into an offering that holistically beats everything else. We'd seen all of the iPhone's features in earlier phones... but their combination and integration in the first iPhone revolutionised the industry. Likewise, we've seen electric cars before, but Tesla shook the industry up by creating an electric car which had no major compromises and could --together with the revolutionary Supercharger network-- could completely replace an ICE car for almost all use-cases.
homero 8y ago
When they start competing wouldn't battery prices start increasing really fast?
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
At this stage, no automaker will be able to seriously compete with Tesla without securing 50+ GWh / yr. in battery supply. Teslas competitors aren't going to sit idly by whilst Tesla takes the whole market.
- spacenick88 8y ago
  And neither will Tesla sit idly by something the legacy automakers seem to assume
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  They have been, for some years already. They'll almost certainly start moving at some point, but none seem to have started yet.
ams6110 8y ago
VW has factories all over the world. If they set their mind to making batteries, I am sure they can do it. And as far as crushing -- the Bolt or Volt is the only EV I'd even consider. For the compromises I'd have to make, a Tesla is far too expensive.
- cmrdporcupine 8y ago
  VW/Audi has factories all over the world, but they're not battery factories. That's the point posters are trying to bring up here. It's worth pointing out that it's likely that the constraint on Bolt production out of GM has not been vehicle demand, but battery supplies from LG Chem. They basically made as many Bolts as they could get batteries from LG Chem, and that's all.
torpfactory 8y ago
Totally agree - The volume of batteries required for even modest EV production is so much larger than any other sector. I also think the idea that EV batteries are just around the corner from commoditization may be a bit premature. Getting the most out of the batteries (think efficiently, power, and especially reliability) currently means a pretty significant engineering integration effort in power electronics, packaging, and thermal management. Having your own vertically integrated production capacity is huge - you get to precisely control (and also pay the risk for) exactly the batteries that fit your design. It’s exactly the same kind of advantage legacy automakers are defending with ICE engines. In 5 years, perhaps there will be contract battery manufacturers who can churn out massive quantities of high quality batteries at a price similar to building your own factory. I bet that timeframe may actually be closer to 10 years. Clearly Tesla isn’t sitting still... where will they be a decade from now.

by danhak 8y ago

cronix 8y ago

And that's in an environment where they are mostly prohibited, in the US, from having dealerships. It's quite a feat, actually.

ummonk 8y ago
Wait, what? How are they prohibited from having dealerships? If anything, the problem they have run into is that some states require them to have dealerships and sell through them instead of selling directly to the consumer.
- belltaco 8y ago
  They probably meant having company owned dealerships.
- cronix 8y ago
  Right. It's an ancient dumb law that seems pretty unique to this industry going way back. How many other industries are prohibited from having their own stores and selling the products they produce themselves? It's like telling Apple they can't sell their hardware at their own branded stores and must only sell them from 3rd party retailers - at an additional markup so the retailer can make a few bucks too. It's anti-consumer and anti-competitive. If Ford wants to open their own stores to sell their own cars (not "dealer franchises"), why shouldn't they be allowed to?
  - ams6110 8y ago
    It originated as protection for franchisees. Early on, manufactures didn't have the resources to set up dealerships everywhere they wanted to sell cars. So they used the franchise model. The argument is/was, that the franchisees needed protection so they could be assured that their investment in a property, facilities, and developing a market in an area could not be taken away by a manufacturer moving in with a company-owned dealership. Very similar to the complaints about Amazon moving in on sellers with their own products once they see what is selling well with independent sellers.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Essentially all elements of civilization are path dependant.

symmitchry 8y ago

> VW group has been leading the world in electric vehicle press releases ha!

icelancer 8y ago

This is what I've been thinking for awhile. A huge number of the detractors predicted that Tesla would get crushed by commoditized goods that they spent the R&D dollars on, namely batteries. But I don't think the capacity is even remotely there for other manufacturers to come in and just buy up energy storage on the open market. Eventually it'll show up due to demand but the flywheel is slow to turn. I think a 3-4 year head start is about right and also in line with most technological head starts (Bezos famously talked about it some time ago and why AWS is the reason they are winning since it had no viable competitor for 7+ years), but like Amazon/AWS, if it takes any longer than that... you're handing Elon a huge amount of time.

ams6110 8y ago
> I don't think the capacity is even remotely there for other manufacturers to come in and just buy up energy storage on the open market If this is the case, doesn't it destroy the arguments of renewable energy advocates that "utility scale" batteries to store solar/wind energy are anywhere close to being realistic?
- icelancer 8y ago
  In the short-term, I'd say so. But I think it's realistic on the timescale that people care about large-scale renewable energy, which is the end of my generation (30ish year old) and the middle of the next, so like 2040-2050.

BurningFrog 8y ago

I have to assume the VW people have thought of that as part of their plans to produce 200,000 vehicles (per year?).

notafraudster 8y ago

I think there's a great deal of uncertainty about whether lithium ion is the right solution or whether we'll be able to online solid-state batteries or other alternatives. So it's a situation where if lithium ion persists, Tesla gets huge dividends for early investment, and if alternatives come online, others get in on the ground floor and have a fighting shot. I have no idea how feasible non-LI batteries are in the medium future.

prostoalex 8y ago
How many other automakers are investing deeply into materials research? Toyota and Honda seem to be playing with fuel cells, everyone else in the latest headlines is just laying off people and trimming the product lines.
- ilikehurdles 8y ago
  https://www.greentechmedia.com/amp/article/wv-quantumscape-investment https://www.greentechmedia.com/amp/article/wv-quantumscape-i... https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/2018/06/volkswagen-tests-quantum-computing-in-battery-research.html https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/2018/06/volkswagen-test... https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2015/12/10/ford-electrified-vehicle-battery-research.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2015... I’m sure there’s more but manufacturer after manufacturer is buying, investing in, poaching from, and acquiring EV/battery tech.
coryrc 8y ago
There is not uncertainty. Film-produced cells are sufficiently cost-effective now and their price is still dropping.
r00fus 8y ago
Well that's a nice diversion however do we have any credible hint that solid state batteries are a) viable and b) mass producible ? It's not like the late 00s where SSDs were viable but deemed not yet cost effective. Solid state batteries IIRC don't even have a proof of concept much less any adoption.

callalex 8y ago

If we're going to make fun of companies leading with press releases before actual product, we can't ignore the fact that Tesla has been pretending they can make a $35k car, when it has now been several years and their cars are nearly twice as much as that for the cheapest model.

mikekij 8y ago
Isn’t their cheapest model now $45k?
- callalex 8y ago
  You can "preorder" it and give them that much money, but they will then follow up with you and tell you that you won't get your car unless you buy more upgrades to push yourself further up in the backlog. So realistically, you can't buy a car at that price.
  - InTheArena 8y ago
    Tesla has been upfront about saying they are still looking at next year for the 35k version. At now point, will they (or have they) told anyone that they won't get the car unless you buy the mid-range or the long range versions. I was a day one reservation holder, and have never received such a message. And also, you can't pre-order it - you can put the same deposit down, if you want, as everyone else - that's 1k, and can apply that to a LR/MR and in the future SR. Also worth noting, the MR and the LR have different inverters, with the MR sharing the same inverter as the SR. Winter is coming ;-)
    - hndamien 8y ago
      They weren't really upfront about this when they were taking preorders in 2016. And I say this as a Model 3 reservation holder, Model S owner and TSLA shareholder.
      - InTheArena 8y ago

ForHackernews 8y ago

[Removed comment based on outdated sales figures]

horseRad 8y ago
Are you for real? Bolt outselling Model 3? That was numbers from last year.. For the record bolt seems to have peaked at 2000+ cars per month last year and decreased to under 2000 per month since. GM seems pretty content with that.
- rohit2412 8y ago
  Or maybe the demand for EV seems to start and stop with Tesla. I wonder how Tesla will do without the lies and hype of futuristic self driving technology
davidgould 8y ago
That article is dated September 1, 2017. Last years news. This year, Tesla Model 3 is selling more than BMW or Mercedes cars in the US and ten times Chevy Bolt.
tigershark 8y ago
It’s a complete and utter trash/fake news. The Chevy bolt sold 1225 unit in August while the model 3 17800. So the model 3 is outselling the bolt almost 15:1. https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ Please verify your sources to avoid spreading misinformation.

sfcguyus 8y ago

Your comment sounds a bit like a gorilla pounding its chest. unfortunately it doesn't bear to reality. Regarding the press releases, Volkswagen is a bit more trustworthy than Tesla's.

zeckalpha 8y ago
Ahem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
- josefx 8y ago
  In contrast to tesla they don't have an unfiltered musk on an official twitter channel. So their official statements are still closer to reality in the general case.
  - dmode 8y ago
    I mean they officially communicated their emission standards

Kurtz79 8y ago

Amusing that childish fanboyism normally reserved for things like Mac vs. Windows, AMD vs. Intel, PS4 vs Xbox, etc... has now spread to the car industry.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
People will fanboy about anything. It's our tribalistic nature.
detaro 8y ago
Hasn't that been a thing with car fans for longer than any of your examples exist?
wil421 8y ago
It’s the exact opposite. Fanboyism was much stronger in cars and always has been. Before any of those companies exist. Ford vs Chevy trucks. No car like Mopar. Think of the muscle car heydays of the 60s and 70s.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
It's been here a long time. Every car sub I subscribe to on Reddit is chock full of Toyota fanboys.

bryanlarsen 8y ago

At the rate China is building and planning to build battery factories, it's also quite possible there will be a glut and a price crash in a couple of years.

2sk21 8y ago
A related question: if China builds battery factories, surely they would also build car factories to use those batteries. What would be the impact on Western car manufacturers? Would software increasingly become the key differentiator between car manufacturers?
- cmrdporcupine 8y ago
  China is already leading the world in EV manufacturing and consumption. It's just that almost none of those vehicles will ever be exported. They're made for the domestic market. There's brands we never hear about here, pumping out pretty decent looking vehicles, but they're made for China.
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    BYD is now designing cars for North American safety standards: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/electric-car-ev-china-trade-1.4893737 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/electric-car-ev-china-trade...
- jbay808 8y ago
  I'm visiting China right now; Chinese-made electric vehicles are absolutely everywhere. NIO in particular seems determined to challenge Tesla here and possibly worldwide. https://www.motortrend.com/news/nio-es8-challenges-tesla-model-x/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/nio-es8-challenges-tesla-mod...

pedrocr 8y ago

Tesla has done an amazing thing by showing that electric cars can match ICE ones and even be better than them in several regards. Before Tesla we all thought electrics were much more of a compromise. > Bolt, Volt, Leaf, i3, ELR - and is pulling away from the pack at an ACCELERATING pace But this is way too breathless. The Nissan Leaf is the best selling electric car of all time. They've sold 350k of them and by all accounts it's a very decent small car. And that's great for everyone because it pushes the infrastructure to adapt and creates the market. I expect Nissan-Renault to keep moving upmarket and Tesla downmarket to a point where we will be more or less fully served in 4 or 5 years. That wouldn't have happened as fast without Tesla but lets not ignore the existing manufacturers that have already done incredibly well on this and give them credit over the ones that are still sitting on their hands.

ekr 8y ago
> Tesla has done an amazing thing by showing that electric cars can match ICE ones and even be better than them in several regards. What? I've been following the market and Tesla has not brought no new innovation in any aspect of the car (engine, battery technology etc). They've just hired some great designers and invested a lot in marketing. You can't even say that their cars are competitively priced. I've seen way more innovation from Chinese electric car builders. Also, wrt to software, Teslas are basically hacked together, according to multiple reports and analyses, teardowns.
- mft_ 8y ago
  I believe that their cars having a single central ECU vs. the general trend of multiple interconnected modules is fairly novel for a major car maker? Their battery technology is also years ahead of competitors, according to teardowns. Anyway... as with discussions of the iPhone ad infinitum, it's not about developing innovations de novo, but rather about taking different features and incorporating them into an offering that holistically beats everything else. We'd seen all of the iPhone's features in earlier phones... but their combination and integration in the first iPhone revolutionised the industry. Likewise, we've seen electric cars before, but Tesla shook the industry up by creating an electric car which had no major compromises and could --together with the revolutionary Supercharger network-- could completely replace an ICE car for almost all use-cases.

homero 8y ago

When they start competing wouldn't battery prices start increasing really fast?

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

At this stage, no automaker will be able to seriously compete with Tesla without securing 50+ GWh / yr. in battery supply. Teslas competitors aren't going to sit idly by whilst Tesla takes the whole market.

spacenick88 8y ago
And neither will Tesla sit idly by something the legacy automakers seem to assume
marcosdumay 8y ago
They have been, for some years already. They'll almost certainly start moving at some point, but none seem to have started yet.

ams6110 8y ago

VW has factories all over the world. If they set their mind to making batteries, I am sure they can do it. And as far as crushing -- the Bolt or Volt is the only EV I'd even consider. For the compromises I'd have to make, a Tesla is far too expensive.

cmrdporcupine 8y ago
VW/Audi has factories all over the world, but they're not battery factories. That's the point posters are trying to bring up here. It's worth pointing out that it's likely that the constraint on Bolt production out of GM has not been vehicle demand, but battery supplies from LG Chem. They basically made as many Bolts as they could get batteries from LG Chem, and that's all.

torpfactory 8y ago

Totally agree - The volume of batteries required for even modest EV production is so much larger than any other sector. I also think the idea that EV batteries are just around the corner from commoditization may be a bit premature. Getting the most out of the batteries (think efficiently, power, and especially reliability) currently means a pretty significant engineering integration effort in power electronics, packaging, and thermal management. Having your own vertically integrated production capacity is huge - you get to precisely control (and also pay the risk for) exactly the batteries that fit your design. It’s exactly the same kind of advantage legacy automakers are defending with ICE engines. In 5 years, perhaps there will be contract battery manufacturers who can churn out massive quantities of high quality batteries at a price similar to building your own factory. I bet that timeframe may actually be closer to 10 years. Clearly Tesla isn’t sitting still... where will they be a decade from now.