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Batteries are not simple, but turns out China has also the best battery making talent in the world. Meanwhile RIP Northvolt, the star of the EU.
by miohtama 2y ago
Batteries are not simple, but turns out China has also the best battery making talent in the world.
Meanwhile RIP Northvolt, the star of the EU.
- verdverm 2y agoSK & JP have battery talent as well
- redwall_hp 2y agoPanasonic (JP) designed the cells Tesla uses and produces half of them. (The rest are made by CATL, as far as I'm aware.) The "gigafactories" are mostly just Tesla providing facilities for Panasonic to use stateside to make cells, and then they do screwdriver assembly to make packs. Panasonic is also building more of their own factories in the US to serve other car companies. Tesla doesn't have any competitive advantage in batteries.
- verdverm 2y agoHyundai (SK) is opening a big vehicle and battery plant in Georgia https://apnews.com/article/hyundai-georgia-electric-vehicle-ev-845e2729fd5220797e7984f424bc1d5c https://apnews.com/article/hyundai-georgia-electric-vehicle-...
- _yb2s 2y agoBattery cells are just a commodity EV makers can purchase- they don't need to be able to engineer them in house. There are a lot more parts on an ICE car that pretty much need to be engineered by the vehicle manufacturer.
- segasaturn 2y agoThey don't need to engineer them, but for example BYD's vertical integration with batteries has been their superpower. Tesla once upon a time (~circa 2013) talked about building battery manufacturing "gigafactories" all over America but I don't know what the status of that is.
- _yb2s 2y agoThat is likely increasingly less relevant as battery technology matures. Back in 2013 the situation was entirely different, and off the shelf cells were all designed for things like laptop computers.