Panasonic already has one of the largest production complexes in the world for battery production; but with the huge demand from Tesla they have had a hard time

Panasonic already has one of the largest production complexes in the world for battery production; but with the huge demand from Tesla they have had a hard time keeping up with the market. I see this as a way for them to scale up to a capacity that can handle Tesla's orders while still being able to produce 18650 cells for the rest of the electronics market. Over the past few months I (and many others) have had a very hard time getting a reliable supply of the NCR18650B cells Tesla is using in their packs. I don't see Panasonic wanting to give up any of the control it has over this sector. The agreement is probably positioned to obligate Tesla to purchase X amount of cells a year to make the new gigafactory economically feasible for Panasonic.