On the question of battery capacity, here is my gut feel: Panasonic is ramping much faster than anyone, including musk thought.
Think about it. At the time that TM came along to save them, the bottom had dropped out of the laptop market and they had zero reason to worry about capacity, efficiency, density etc. for many years. TM has been buying up Panasonics capacity and asking for more. Panasonic being conservative, wouldn't commit to crazy hockey stick capacity, so TM strong-armed Panasonic into partnering with them on the GF, they said yes having little choice.
So TM breaks ground on the Sparks factory, and Panasonic quietly says to it's own people: Maximize output. Those projects you wanted a few million USD on that we couldn't afford before, now we can-- go get it done. Capacity goes up, energy density goes up, prices come down. Panasonic threatens TM: you have to take all we produce, so TM starts Tesla Energy to soak up any and all extra production, further emboldening Panasonic to maximize output.
Panasonic batteries stack up in sparks. Elon realizes that with or without the GF output they can actually ramp the M3 and publicly makes it a goal.
I too sense a lack of urgency on the GF from Elon. I think it is more a necessary in 2019 sort of thing, and they are prioritizing it accordingly. The cheapest assets in play are Panasonic's slack capacity.
If it IS an adjustment of priorities like that, it is the right thing to do for everyone involved but not something they would necessarily want to admit publicly without it sounding like they were walking back production commitments.
Similarly Panasonic was probably never totally honest with TM. If they had loads of slack capacity they wouldn't want to admit that to TM or put themselves in a weaker bargaining position. Even *panasonic* may not have known their capacity for internal face-saving reasons.
So the GF may have been an unintentional stone-soup incident where Panasonic suddenly discovers it can in fact meet a much higher production at 30% reduced cost.
/shrug fiction maybe.
Think about it. At the time that TM came along to save them, the bottom had dropped out of the laptop market and they had zero reason to worry about capacity, efficiency, density etc. for many years. TM has been buying up Panasonics capacity and asking for more. Panasonic being conservative, wouldn't commit to crazy hockey stick capacity, so TM strong-armed Panasonic into partnering with them on the GF, they said yes having little choice.
So TM breaks ground on the Sparks factory, and Panasonic quietly says to it's own people: Maximize output. Those projects you wanted a few million USD on that we couldn't afford before, now we can-- go get it done. Capacity goes up, energy density goes up, prices come down. Panasonic threatens TM: you have to take all we produce, so TM starts Tesla Energy to soak up any and all extra production, further emboldening Panasonic to maximize output.
Panasonic batteries stack up in sparks. Elon realizes that with or without the GF output they can actually ramp the M3 and publicly makes it a goal.
I too sense a lack of urgency on the GF from Elon. I think it is more a necessary in 2019 sort of thing, and they are prioritizing it accordingly. The cheapest assets in play are Panasonic's slack capacity.
If it IS an adjustment of priorities like that, it is the right thing to do for everyone involved but not something they would necessarily want to admit publicly without it sounding like they were walking back production commitments.
Similarly Panasonic was probably never totally honest with TM. If they had loads of slack capacity they wouldn't want to admit that to TM or put themselves in a weaker bargaining position. Even *panasonic* may not have known their capacity for internal face-saving reasons.
So the GF may have been an unintentional stone-soup incident where Panasonic suddenly discovers it can in fact meet a much higher production at 30% reduced cost.
/shrug fiction maybe.
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