There are some
facts that may be pertinent re Berlin phase 2+3 expansion for another 500k/yr vehicles, which would take Berlin to a nominal 1m/yr. These facts may give us insight into the wider plans:
1) It includes a paint shop in the vehicle assembly building. So whatever is going to be produced at 500k/yr is going to get painted. (See A104)
2) It includes a cell reclamation/recycling plant. (I can't see where it is located, but it has been noted in the submission).
3) EU tariffs on non-EU (or UK-EU-TCA) cars/batteries seem to start in 2024 at 10% and ratchet through to 2027. I can't find the detail re proposed tariffs for imports from China but there is a 70% local content requirement that is intended to - de facto - exclude China. Protectionism is rising everywhere and is a strategic risk as hinted at in the Q2-2023 call last week.
Rules requiring EVs traded between the EU and UK to have a certain percentage of their battery and parts sourced from the EU or UK have raised concerns
www.just-auto.com
So here is my
speculation.
I think that people are getting confused between introduction of new manufacturing platforms and introduction of new models, or model platform. Such confusion is entirely understandable, and to an extent promoted by some folk in Tesla using the words rather ambiguously.
I personally don't think CT is evidence of a 'new'
manufacturing platform vs latest release Y. Yeah the size of the casting is bigger, but not novel. And unpainted body panels, yawn. But a decoupled 48V would be a real step forwards, so that may be the platform innovation from the CT that goes into the 2/Z, and (wild guess) into the refreshed 3/Y.
I think that a 3 product refresh is coming (this quarter, end Q3), and it seems to me that they are trying to do that simultaneously in all model 3 manufacturing locations. I think that will shift to full castings front and back, and they will have found sufficient body stiffness to insert a hatchback thereby increasing product appeal to many important markets. I suspect the Y lines will also get a corresponding update of some sort to keep them aligned with the 3. That will clear the decks re 3/Y for the subsequent few years, and likely allow further 3 and Y lines to be inserted as needed without regrets.
It is normal for the best sellers in Europe to do in excess of 200-250,000/yr. So I expect that a 3 line will get inserted into Berlin alongside the existing Y line, inside phase 1, during 2024. The point is that the tariff implications are that soon the 3/Y production needs to be localised. And the phase 1 building has a paint shop. This has always been intended to fill Berlin phase 1 with the 3/Y product. The Y has already hit the 250k/yr volume but I think it has legs to go further, and the 3 ought to be a bigger seller if it was a hatch.
After 15 years the Volkswagen Golf is no longer Europe's top dog, overtaken on the sales charts by the Peugeot 208.
www.carexpert.com.au
European sales of the Model Y in the first half of the year tripled to 125,144 from 40,147 in the same period the year before, according to preliminary data.
insideevs.com
I think that Mexico, Shanghai, and Berlin will get 2/Z lines which may well feature painted body panels. That is my conclusion from the Berlin phase 2+3 including a paint shop. This will be a Golf/Clio sized product platform that will also do a light van and a smaller people carrier and hot hatches and so on. This I think is the core product for Berlin phase 2+3.
The Shanghai plant will have excess vehicle LFP becoming available during the early 2025 - through - 2027 period. We can fairly confidently forecast this because of the EU tariffs meaning that the China-LFP will get progressively shut out. So I expect that during 2024 we will see 4680 machiney get installed at Berlin and that this will be live by end 2024 and will initially feed phase 1 as that expands.
This implies that during 2024 we will see the pre-loaded land at Shanghai get built out for a 2/Z vehicle assembly factory to absorb that LFP. Let's call that the Shanghai-annex
I am unsure to what extent the prismatic LFP is as structural a module as the 4680 packs. However I expect that the 2/Z will be designed to accept both LFP and 4680.
At some point a larger van will get launched. There is a long history of exporting vans out of Mexico and Brazil to Europe, so maybe teaser production can come out of Mexico Monterrey. Maybe they'll fit a van line in Berlin phase 2+3 alongside the 2/Y lines. Ditto a van line into Shanghai-annex. I don't know. It is possible that the van line wll be unpainted stainless vs painted, too early too tell.
I have no insight into whether it is attractive to put 4680 into stationary storage vs LFP. I have no insight into whether B-grade cells are any longer viable in storage products. They used to be viable, due to certification issues that made them not-viable for vehicles but still OK for storage back in the early days. But I'm no longer sure if that is still an attractive pathway. In part this is because I do not know what the mechanisms are that might cause a 4680 to be a 'dud' as an A-grade and still meet some arbritary criteria as OK for B-grade use in stationary vs simply putting it into the recycling stream. The inclusion of the battery recycling plant at Berlin suggests to me that 4680 is binary : A-grade or recycle/scrap but perhaps I am being too harsh.
I don't think it is attractive to put a stationary storage plant at a vehicle site like Berlin. Instead better to put that somewhere like Poland or Spain or Turkey or elesewhere-than-Shanghai-in-China. There are a lot of logistics/personnel etc that have to get pulled together at a high-end site like Berlin, which aren't needed for stationary storage. So capital and personnel efficiency suggests to me that the storage build locations are the B-grade locations, whilst the more expensive A-grade locations are the vehicle locations. A 40 GWh/yr Megapack factory is approximately 40 container loads inbound each day (5-day week) and 40 container loads out each day at 10,000 packs/yr = 40GWh. That is a vastly simpler site to run and staff than the equivalent vehicle factory. Hence Lathrop being what it is.
I sense that the USA factories getting built for LFP manufacturing are going to have a customer shortage. I'm sure Lathrop can help, theeby getting the full US-IRA. And the China-LFP going into Lathrop can go to a China-storage factory. Wild guess ... Nanjing (easy to get to on the high speed line from Shanghai; good industrial city; lower cost than Shanghai; excellent logistics). Probably in 2024-2025 as that USA-IRA LFP stream becomes available for Lathrop use. There might be similar EU-LFP streams coming available as well in that timeframe and judging by the travails of VW/etc perhaps they too wil be seeking customers - top candidate surely is Poland.
(India will or will not happen whenever the Indians get the 100% ownership message. No need to rush until the 2/Z product is debugged. Brazil may at some stage get a stationary plant fed by locally-assembled China-owned/Brazil-located LFP-plants)
If 4680 works then I don't think 2170 will get any further volume increase. I expect they'll continue to use the LG2170 and the PA2170 they have, but I can't see why they would build any more 2170 lines. Implication is that Semi will go to 4680 at some point.
etn.news
electrek.co
