Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Would you buy a Model S with CATL battery?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Battery Day is around the corner and potential announcement is first phase of million mile battery improvement using the readily available CATL battery from China. Alternatively, Tesla or Panasonic could make it in USA paying a big royalty to CATL. Elon may say a better 1.5M mile Tesla battery will follow in 2021, but until then it's Chinese batteries. After what China did to the world with the Corona Virus, I wouldn't give them a dime if given the choice. I know many of our drugs and other items are single sourced from China, but only buy them when nothing else is available. Would you buy a new ms if it required sending $$$$ to China?
 
Its terrible what they did (and what they do on a regular basis), but I don't think that a boycott of China is practical on the individual level. It is so impractical to avoid Chinese goods that the protest will never go viral.

In general, I am happy if Tesla can get enough batteries to keep making their cars. They have talked about the Austin factory being a Terra-factory and so that means they intend to make batteries there.

Tesla has their own battery technology from Maxwell and I'm not sure how this relates to the CATL agreements, whether it is Tesla technology or not.
 
After further research, I think Tesla will start new battery production in Fremont and expand at a GigaFactory somewhere else.

We all know China steals our IP. I wonder how Tesla protects its IP while producing vehicles in China and working so closely with CATL. China reads our patents daily and takes whatever IP they want because our laws don't apply to them.