From the WSJ's Corporate Intelligence blog:
- Marc J. Seifer Photo Archives
Tesla Motors Inc.TSLA -5.06%’s bold plan to build the world’s largest battery factory highlights a strategic tension building that makes battery suppliers anxious: the format that Tesla uses for its batteries.As to the lithium issue see, among others, Green Car Reports, Sept. 3, 2013:
The 18/650 cell, a cylindrical battery that is 18 mm wide and 65 mm tall, is going out of favor. Tesla already is the primary buyer of this format, with laptop makers being the others. Tesla uses 8,000 such cells, specially formatted with its own chemistry, to provide the energy to its 85 kWh Model S. An average laptop uses four cells.
Every other carmaker is using far fewer, much larger batteries. These high-power batteries are being built in various factories in the U.S., all of which received subsidies from the U.S. government, and all of which are operating well below full capacity.
Tesla’s methodology – incorrectly derided in its early days as simply using laptop batteries — has allowed it to get consumer electronics prices for batteries while companies like General Motors Co. and Nissan Motor Co. work to drive down costs without the full benefits of scale.
Despite its ability to lower costs, no other company is following Tesla’s lead. Indeed, in speaking with numerous battery experts at the International Battery Seminar in Ft. Lauderdale a few weeks ago, they said that the larger cells eventually would prove to be as cost effective, and have better safety and durability. Thus the reason why the other automakers haven’t gone down the same path.
Meanwhile, in consumer electronics, the cylindrical 18/650 cell already has gone out of favor in place of flat cells that allow for tablets, smart phones and thin laptops.
Prabhakar Patil, the chief executive officer LG Chem Power Inc., a battery research division of Korean electronics giant LG Corp., questions whether battery industry suppliers will want to invest in the Tesla battery format....MORE
Will Tesla Alone Double Global Demand For Its Battery Cells?
