TL;dr If his infomation is accurate, GF1 now has ~36 GWh/yr installed capacity (13 lines capable of 400K cells/line/day).
I've saw a string of tweets concerning Tesla and Panasonic at GF1. I have followed this up close, with friends and family working on both sides. Some of these people I have known since they were infants, and most of what I know comes from listening to them talk shop.
Pana and Tesla had growing pains. But the majority were Tesla's according to Tesla's own SEC filing. Tsla mentions problems with its responsibilities more than Pana's issues.
Panasonic began trial runs in February with their new machinery. There were 4 lines of 14 machine each than, and each line had a theoretical capacity of ~300k cells per day. Initial cell production was powerwalls in Hawaii and Somoa, if I remember right. In June all production...
...was switched to cells for cars, which is why the cells for Hornsdale came from Samsung. There was tittering then about a break in the relationship with Tesla and Panasonic, but this was all planned. By fall 2017 it was clear something was wrong. The cells Panasonic was...
...producing were piling up by the millions, filling than empty spaces in GF1. The third party (I've heard described as Rube Goldberg) machinery Tesla installed to turn cells into batteries was malfunctioning. By winter 2017 Panasonic was lending their own employees to Tesla...
...to help sort things out. When not enough volunteered they were "voluntold". Tesla was in breach of contract and Panasonic could have walked, but instead they acted more like a real partner. Tesla went on a hiring spree and used brute force to overcome the shortcomings of the..
...third party machinery. Meanwhile Tesla tapped the German engineering firm Grohmann, whom Tesla had aquired the previous year, to create a fix. This they did, with a series of machines referred to as the Grohmann line.
By late spring/early summer 2018 Tesla outpaced the...
...Panasonic production, catching them flat footed. Panasonic responded in 2 ways, by installing more lines and, beginning around September 2018, installing lines capable of 400k cells per day. These were the last 3 of 13 lines. By early 2019 Panasonic was in process of...
...retrofitting the first 10 lines to bring them up to speed. Panasonic now has 13 lines capable of production in excess of 5 million cells per day.
Meantime on the Tesla side, I am told the second Grohmann line is going in, each line capable of a battery every 90 seconds...
...and using far less manpower. Headcount was reduced by attrition and by reassigning employees to other areas. Tesla is now in full hiring mode again; one of the people going through the process is my little grand daughter's mother.
As to capacities, I've seen a lot of numbers..
...bandied about. The numbers I accept as accurate are these:
When GF1 is finished, Panasonic has been telling employees there will be 77 lines of cell machines, with a 78th for training. Planned capacity back in 2017 was thus 150 GWh of cells per year, which checks if you...
...do the math. With the current cell lines GF1 will have 200 GWh of cells per year, if and when GF1 is finished. There lies a rub.
Reno is labor constrained like you wouldn't believe. Nobody, but nobody, saw what the local press call the Tesla effect, the flood of businesses...
...that poured into the area just because Tesla was here. Both Tesla and Panasonic are struggling to fill posi8even though they have some of the best salary and benefits in the area. Tesla is wise to source cells elsewhere.
I've been listening to stories of a rift between Tesla..
...and Panasonic as long as they have been here; after all, it is the shawties favorite dream and I grow tired of chasing such rumors down.. All I can say is that both Tesla and Panasonic have made it clear from the start that their's is not an exclusive relationship, that...
...neither company wants to be exclusively dependent on the other. That said, when the chips were down Panasonic acted more as a partner than a supplier, even though they have a lease on their area and could have made battery cells for anyone else, and this should be remembered.
All of the above was off the top of my head, and I did not bother digging up exact dates. I missed interesting details also, like Tesla switching 2 lines to Powerwalls for Puerto Rico following the hurricane. Now that I have off my chest I'm going to lay down and take a nap,...
...one of the privileges of being retired.