As we already know, Tesla car sales in the first quarter fell short of the manufacturer's expectations. Sales volumes in the first three months of 2019 were down 31% quarter-on-quarter. Several factors are to blame for this, but there is no excuse for bread. Worse, analysts are losing optimism about boosting Tesla vehicle shipments, and the company's Li-ion battery partner, Panasonic of Japan, is forced to listen to industry experts.
According to the Nikkei agency, Panasonic and Tesla have decided to freeze investments in the US plant Gigafactory 1 for the production of lithium-ion batteries. Battery cells at the Tesla factory are produced on Panasonic equipment, and then almost manually assembled into "jars" by employees of the American company.
Gigafactory 1 began operating at the end of 2017. The current productivity of this enterprise is equivalent to the assembly of batteries with a total capacity of 35 GWh per year. During 2019, Panasonic and Tesla planned to increase the plant's capacity to 54 GWh per year, for which it was necessary to spend up to $1,35 billion in order to start expanded production in 2020. Now these plans have been shelved.
Panasonic also suspends investment in the production of the Gigafactory in China. Tesla's Chinese electric vehicle assembly plant was also expected to get its own battery production. Under the new plans, to assemble Chinese Teslas, the American manufacturer will purchase battery cells from several manufacturers.
Panasonic previously reported an operating loss in its battery business for Tesla. Moreover, due to problems with increasing the production of Tesla Model 3 in 2018, the losses were higher than in 2017. The margin for electric vehicles is very small. At the same time, almost half of the cost of an electric car is the price of a battery. In such conditions, only a stable increase in sales can save the manufacturer, which we have not yet observed. As a result, Panasonic decided to take a break from its manufacturing relationship with Tesla.
Source: 3dnews.ru