Panasonic

After the Model 3, Tesla’s ‘solar roof’ is probably the company’s most anticipated product of 2017, which brings some scrutiny to its plans for production – not unlike the Model 3’s production program.

The recent release of information from Tesla and Panasonic led to some confusion over the production of the product at Gigafactory 2, which the company is now clarifying.
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Shortly after Toyota unveiled a new solar roof option for the 2017 Prius Prime, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the Tesla Model 3 will “probably” also have a solar roof option.

Now we learn that Panasonic, a current solar cell and battery cell supplier for Tesla, is releasing a  new solar product designed for automotive applications, which will first be used in Toyota’s solar roof option for the Prius.
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Panasonic has become a crucial partner to Tesla over the years. After becoming the first battery manufacturer to accept to supply them despite having no track record in the mid-2000s, their partnership grew to multi-billion dollar battery supply contracts.

The partnership has since transitioned to a manufacturing collaboration at the Gigafactory for batteries and at SolarCity’s Buffalo factories for solar panels.

And it could now grow to other parts of Tesla’s business according to Panasonic CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga.
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After the Christmas break, the markets reopened today and Tesla was among the top movers thanks the announcement that they signed a deal with Panasonic to invest over a quarter of a billion dollar in the manufacturing of solar cells and modules at Tesla’s factory in Buffalo.
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Back in October, Tesla confirmed working on a deal with Panasonic for the production of solar cells and modules at SolarCity’s Buffalo solar ‘Gigafactory’. Early this morning, Tesla announced that they closed the deal with Panasonic and they clarified the products they will make at the factory.
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Beyond Tesla and Panasonic’s collaborations in battery manufacturing at the Gigafactory in Nevada and solar cell manufacturing at the factory in Buffalo, the two companies reportedly struck a deal this week for Panasonic to manufacture complete solar panels for Tesla. The contract is reportedly significant enough that Panasonic is reopening its idled solar module factory in Osaka, Japan.
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While discussing potential improvements in manufacturing efficiency with Tesla investor Ron Baron at his conference in New York today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that under Tesla and with the new partnership with Panasonic, SolarCity’s “solar Gigafactory” in Buffalo (pictured above) could produce up to 10 GW/year of solar products – up from the previous 1 GW/year of planned production.
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Despite likely being Tesla’s most important fundamental product developed so far, we know very little about the new 2170 battery cell to be manufactured at the Gigafactory in Nevada. Tesla and its manufacturing partner, Panasonic, are keeping a lid on the details.

Last night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a bold claim [I know, shocker] about the new cell that will be the foundation for much of Tesla’s product line over much of the next decade. During a conference call with analysts yesterday, he said that the battery cell is the “best and cheapest in the world”.
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While reporting Panasonic’s latest financial results, Chief Executive Kazuhiro Tsuga commented about the company’s growing partnership with Tesla. Tsuga warns that Panasonic could have problems aligning its production capacity with Tesla’s demand for batteries without more investments.
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We were quite surprised when Tesla and Panasonic announced a new deal to collaborate on the manufacturing of solar cells and modules at the SolarCity Buffalo factory. And that’s not only because it was announced at 11pm on a Sunday night, but because of the implications it has on the solar cells and modules to be produced at the factory.

SolarCity got the factory from its acquisition of Silevo, a solar cell and module manufacturer. The company was developing the plant, which was expected to go online next year, in order to manufacture its own high efficiency ‘Triex tunneling junction technology’ for cells and modules.
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Late Sunday evening, Tesla announced a new partnership with Panasonic in the form of a non-binding letter of intent to manufacture solar cells and modules at SolarCity’s Buffalo ‘Gigafactory’, which the company just took over during the past few weeks.
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Back in 2007, Nissan and NEC, a Japenese tech giant, created a battery manufacturing company, Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC), in order to eventually supply the automaker’s electric vehicle programs. Both companies have since each invested hundreds of millions in the venture, which started producing the battery cells for the Nissan Leaf in 2010.

At some point in 2014, it became one of the largest electric vehicle battery manufacturers, second only to Panasonic, Tesla’s battery cell supplier. The joint-venture has since lost market shares and Nissan has been quite opened about looking to partner with someone else for future EV programs, like it’s new 60 kWh battery pack.

Now we learn that the automaker is looking to sell its shares in AESC and Panasonic could be a buyer.
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Tesla has been giving tours of its Gigafactory all week starting with WSJ and NYT exclusives on Monday and followed by an important press tour on Tuesday, but during those events, Tesla and Panasonic blocked access or stopped the media from taking pictures of parts of the plant.

Now a group of VIPs got a tour of the factory for the ‘Grand Opening’ event today and they shared some great pictures of some of the most important machines at the Gigafactory, which have not been made public until now…
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Things are starting to get interesting at the ‘Tesla Gigafactory 1’ ahead of the ‘Grand Opening’ event set for July 29th. The goal of the factory is to bring a ~30% cost reduction on battery production through vertical integration and economy of scale.

While Tesla has been manufacturing battery packs at the factory since late last year, battery cell production is expected to be the next big step for Tesla to achieve its goals for the plant. Panasonic, Tesla’s strategic partner for the factory, is in charge of battery cell manufacturing on site and is reportedly ramping up hiring for cell production at the plant.
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The Tesla Model 3’s $35,000 price tag will be enabled in part due to a significant reduction in battery cost through the automaker’s partnership with Panasonic on the Gigafactory in Nevada. While Tesla owns and operates the giant battery factory, Panasonic is still in charge of battery cell production at the plant, which Tesla then uses to make battery packs for its vehicles.

With the strong demand for Tesla’s vehicles, Panasonic now says that it expects its battery sales to double within the next 3 years – or after the first full planned year of Model 3 production.
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For the most part, Tesla’s Gigafactory has looked the same from the outside since the beginning of the year. The first phase consists of 4 sections of about 475,000 square feet for a total of 1.9 million square feet. The final version of the building, which should be completed by the end of the decade, is expected to have 13 million square feet of manufacturing and work space. It should be enough to become the biggest building on earth by footprint and Tesla plans for the factory to produce at least as much battery capacity as the entire world production of li-ion cells.

Now we learn that Tesla is planning to add a new section to the plant with an estimated completion date by the end of the year, according a building permit recently issued to Tesla.
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While Tesla has been manufacturing battery packs at the Gigafactory for its energy storage division since last year, new battery cell production is expected to be the real hallmark of the giant battery factory and it has yet to happen.

Panasonic, Tesla’s strategic partner at the plant, is in charge of the cell production inside the facility and it is expected to begin the process by the end of the year. Now we learn that Panasonic is “gearing up for significant growth” at the Gigafactory and it will host a special invitation-only hiring event on location next week to for “positions in advanced manufacturing”.
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While Panasonic has been Tesla’s longtime partner for battery cell supply, the automaker confirmed last year that for the first time it approved a cell from another manufacturer, LG Chem, but only for a small contract for its Roadster 3.0 upgrade. Now we learn that Tesla started taking delivery of much larger quantities of battery cells from yet another supplier: Samsung SDI.
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During the recent conference call with analysts for Tesla’s first quarter 2016, co-founder and CTO JB Straubel said that we shouldn’t focus too much on Tesla’s previously stated goal of 35 GWh of battery cell production at the Gigafactory, and 50 GWh of battery pack output.

Straubel said that Tesla was prepared to adjust the battery factory output according to the higher than anticipated demand for the Model 3 after the company received over 373,000 pre-orders. Tesla’s battery output at the factory depends significantly on Panasonic and now the Japanese battery maker says that it would move up its investment schedule if asked by Tesla.
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