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Panasonic makes Tesla's batteries. If someone paid Panasonic a little bit more money, what's to prevent them from using the same batteries? I would love to see

Panasonic makes Tesla's batteries. If someone paid Panasonic a little bit more money, what's to prevent them from using the same batteries? I would love to see the engineering details around the 'moat' that Tesla has with batteries.

aerovistae 8y ago
those batteries are coming from the gigafactory, which is a joint-venture with tesla. the batteries produced there aren't about to start going to other companies. if other companies wanted to build a new factory with panasonic, perhaps they could do that....and then we'll start to see their results sometime in the 2020s....
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Panasonic's solar roofing products from its joint venture with Tesla in NY are already being mostly sold to Tesla's competitors...
  - jsight 8y ago
    AFAIK, Panasonic doesn't make solar roofing? Source on their panels from Buffalo mostly going to non-Tesla installers?
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      https://electrek.co/2018/08/08/tesla-solar-roofs-delays-panasonic-new-buyers-cells-gigafactory-2/ https://electrek.co/2018/08/08/tesla-solar-roofs-delays-pana... And that is a pro-Tesla source. I had a WSJ link before that I don't have time to look up.
mschuster91 8y ago
> Panasonic makes Tesla's batteries. If someone paid Panasonic a little bit more money, what's to prevent them from using the same batteries? Panasonic makes the cells, which is easy to do, to scale and to copy. Tesla's added value is the charging control for each cell in the battery pack.
- davrosthedalek 8y ago
  No, making good cells is actually the hard part. The charging electronics is simple and easy. You can buy these ICs for cents from the usual suspects. Or does TESLA have some special, hard to circumvent, patent on the charging algo?
  - codeulike 8y ago
    It's more than charging. It's cell monitoring, cooling, protection systems. EV Battery packs are complicated.
  - Carlee 8y ago
    Making a BMS is by no means simple or cheap in the range of cents. It's hard to make good cells, but creating a good BMS, designing an easy way to at fuse wires, creating cooling bands and figuring out how to do so on a huge scale is just as hard
  - sowbug 8y ago
    Tesla has promised not to stop anyone using its patents in furtherance of the same mission to accelerate the advent of sustainable transportation. https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
- rcxdude 8y ago
  The cells are probably the hardest part of the system to manufacture. Damn near anyone can make a BMU (and they do), though there is a fair amount of effort needed to design a decent and affordable pack. Very few entities can make a decent lithium cell.
  - mschuster91 8y ago
    > Damn near anyone can make a BMU (and they do) For small currents, yes. For the huge current spikes both in draining and charging, or the continuous massive loads of supercharging? No. Same for the actual science: figuring out a way to pull/push hundreds of amps to the pack while taking care that no single cell is overloaded/overheated or that faulty or degraded cells are taken care of.
Diederich 8y ago
I believe Panasonic makes the cells that go into the Model X and S. But Tesla makes the cells going into the much, much higher volume Model 3.
audunw 8y ago
I'm only guessing here, but the chemistry they use for Teslas battery cells seems to be developed in very close collaboration with Tesla. I wouldn't be surprised if they have an agreement that prevents them from selling the exact same chemistry to others. The chemistry might also be finely tuned to work with their own battery management units, though I'm less sure of that.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  The cells themselves are fairly standard cells. The secret sauce for Tesla has always been how they assembled them together and integrate with other components into the finished battery. This is the same as Anker; they use the same lithium cells in their products as almost all of their competitors. Their secret sauce is assembly the cells together with other components to make the final products.
  - mlindner 8y ago
    That isn't really true. The cells are not standard cells. They have their protection removed to give them more volume and also the blend of electrolytes used is also proprietary.
    - BeeOnRope 8y ago
      The "standard cell" would be without protection in the first place. It's not like the batteries materialize out the ether with protection circuits which are then removed for Tesla: the basic product Panasonic sells are the bare cells. On top of those bare cells, third parties may add protection circuits, or maybe Panasonic does it themselves in some cases.

aerovistae 8y ago

those batteries are coming from the gigafactory, which is a joint-venture with tesla. the batteries produced there aren't about to start going to other companies. if other companies wanted to build a new factory with panasonic, perhaps they could do that....and then we'll start to see their results sometime in the 2020s....

gamblor956 8y ago
Panasonic's solar roofing products from its joint venture with Tesla in NY are already being mostly sold to Tesla's competitors...
- jsight 8y ago
  AFAIK, Panasonic doesn't make solar roofing? Source on their panels from Buffalo mostly going to non-Tesla installers?
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    https://electrek.co/2018/08/08/tesla-solar-roofs-delays-panasonic-new-buyers-cells-gigafactory-2/ https://electrek.co/2018/08/08/tesla-solar-roofs-delays-pana... And that is a pro-Tesla source. I had a WSJ link before that I don't have time to look up.

mschuster91 8y ago

> Panasonic makes Tesla's batteries. If someone paid Panasonic a little bit more money, what's to prevent them from using the same batteries? Panasonic makes the cells, which is easy to do, to scale and to copy. Tesla's added value is the charging control for each cell in the battery pack.

davrosthedalek 8y ago
No, making good cells is actually the hard part. The charging electronics is simple and easy. You can buy these ICs for cents from the usual suspects. Or does TESLA have some special, hard to circumvent, patent on the charging algo?
- codeulike 8y ago
  It's more than charging. It's cell monitoring, cooling, protection systems. EV Battery packs are complicated.
- Carlee 8y ago
  Making a BMS is by no means simple or cheap in the range of cents. It's hard to make good cells, but creating a good BMS, designing an easy way to at fuse wires, creating cooling bands and figuring out how to do so on a huge scale is just as hard
- sowbug 8y ago
  Tesla has promised not to stop anyone using its patents in furtherance of the same mission to accelerate the advent of sustainable transportation. https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
rcxdude 8y ago
The cells are probably the hardest part of the system to manufacture. Damn near anyone can make a BMU (and they do), though there is a fair amount of effort needed to design a decent and affordable pack. Very few entities can make a decent lithium cell.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  > Damn near anyone can make a BMU (and they do) For small currents, yes. For the huge current spikes both in draining and charging, or the continuous massive loads of supercharging? No. Same for the actual science: figuring out a way to pull/push hundreds of amps to the pack while taking care that no single cell is overloaded/overheated or that faulty or degraded cells are taken care of.

Diederich 8y ago

I believe Panasonic makes the cells that go into the Model X and S. But Tesla makes the cells going into the much, much higher volume Model 3.

audunw 8y ago

I'm only guessing here, but the chemistry they use for Teslas battery cells seems to be developed in very close collaboration with Tesla. I wouldn't be surprised if they have an agreement that prevents them from selling the exact same chemistry to others. The chemistry might also be finely tuned to work with their own battery management units, though I'm less sure of that.

gamblor956 8y ago
The cells themselves are fairly standard cells. The secret sauce for Tesla has always been how they assembled them together and integrate with other components into the finished battery. This is the same as Anker; they use the same lithium cells in their products as almost all of their competitors. Their secret sauce is assembly the cells together with other components to make the final products.
- mlindner 8y ago
  That isn't really true. The cells are not standard cells. They have their protection removed to give them more volume and also the blend of electrolytes used is also proprietary.
  - BeeOnRope 8y ago
    The "standard cell" would be without protection in the first place. It's not like the batteries materialize out the ether with protection circuits which are then removed for Tesla: the basic product Panasonic sells are the bare cells. On top of those bare cells, third parties may add protection circuits, or maybe Panasonic does it themselves in some cases.