IMO Megapacks produced at Lathrop will increasingly pivot to export due to IRA rules.
I think you are right that US LFP manufacturing may have an excess, but I'm not sure Tesla can safely base their North American Megapack production on that assumption.
Many of these factories are joint ventures with car companies, or have car companies as intended customers. IMO there are increasing signs that we are about to enter the "wild stampede" phase of EV adoption, where all car companies decide that swimming the moat ASAP is their only chance of survival.
But in particular I not convinced that any other form of IRA compliant LFP battery production can ramp faster that 4680 LFP, or produce cells on a cheaper per kWh basis than 4680.
Most of the the cost savings in battery day are "chemistry agnostic" the only exception is the 12% cost reduction due to Cathode material.
So I think it should be possible for Tesla to make 4680 LFP cells and that will probably be the cheapest LFP cells they can source on a per kWh basis.
Then we come to the question of whether or not 4680 LFP is adequate. For energy storage it doesn't matter, for vehicles the advantages of a structural pack probably cancel out any other minor disadvantages.
IMO the Austin cathode plant is important for the following reasons:-
- Allow 4680 production to ramp to high volumes
- 12% cost reduction per cell.
- Fully IRA compliant
- Single crystal cathode? (possibly later)
The Tesla long range semi is the vehicle that would benefit the most from using cathode material produced at Austin, especially if single crystal cathode is ever produced.
When the Semi needs to move to 4680 cells might depend in part of whether or not Sparks 2170 production can use cathode material produced at Austin.
An easy path to very high levels of IRA compliance is for Fremont, Sparks and Mexico to source battery raw materials from Texas.
For the Berlin ramp, raw materials that are being imported into Sparks could be shipped to Berlin instead. I'm not aware of any current plan for a Cathode plant at or near Berlin.
Class A and Class B cells we don't really know what is going on with them, or why the grading is done. My suspicion is that Class A and Class B cells can't be mixed in a single pack, but an all Class B pack is fine. Tesla just needs to avoid shipping a vehicle with a Class B pack to a customer?