Tesla and Panasonic freeze spending on $4.5B Gigafactory

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Tesla-and-Panasonic-freeze-spending-on-4.5bn-Gigafactory

by elemeno • 7 years ago

165 183 7 years ago

asia.nikkei.com

ckastner• 7 years ago

Panasonic's issue seems to be:

Panasonic's Tesla EV battery business had operating losses exceeding 20 billion yen [~180m USD] in the financial year that ended in March, up from a year earlier. The losses were exacerbated by delays in the start of production of the Model 3.

It's not entirely clear to me from the article whether this loss stems from the operations itself, or from the reduction in demand for the model 3. Either way, it's bad news for Tesla.

lazulicurio• 7 years ago

Either way, it's bad news for Tesla

As someone in the (US) industry, everyone's hurting right now, not just Tesla. The GM plant closures have had a large ripple effect on suppliers. And beyond that, in general it seems like there's been a lot of belt-tightening over the last year. Whether self-fulfilling prophecy from fears of a recession or something else, I don't know.

navigatesol6• 7 years ago

As someone in the (US) industry, everyone's hurting right now, not just Tesla

Yes, that auto market is cyclical. That's why it's nice to be producing tons of cash flow and income, instead of burning billions of dollars.

prolepunk• 7 years ago

The weird thing about GM closures was that GM seemed to be doing fine, and then they axed whole bunch of factories and discontinued most of the sedans and Chevy Volt.

lazyjones5• 7 years ago

Here's an older article that clarifies some of the issues:

Panasonic has lowered its forecast for the 2018/19 fiscal year, which ends in March, following a decline in profits over the winter. However, the Energy division, which also includes the battery business with Tesla, recorded its first operating profit in three quarters at 131 million euros.

The Japanese company cites the trade dispute between the USA and China as the reason for the lowered forecast, which caused demand for automotive components and factory equipment, among other things, to fall.

https://www.electrive.com/2019/02/05/tesla-saves-panasonics-...

x38iq84n• 7 years ago

There is a lot of negative sentiment around Tesla lately. The Giga Factory was supposed to be Tesla's greatest asset, its largest advantage in the market, that enables exponential growth of production and sales. It looks like bears are coming for Tesla if they don't step up their game.

navigatesol6• 7 years ago

There is a lot of negative sentiment around Tesla lately.

Because the mainstream press is catching up to things that "the Shorts" have been seeing and saying for a long time.

It's a fact that Teslas are great cars. It's also a fact that the quality is just okay, that the market for $50k+ vehicles is limited, and that Tesla can't produce a $35k vehicle at a profit.

If people bought into the idea that you were getting a fully autonomous car that would drive itself around and make you money while you slept, for $35,000 before incentives...I'm not sure what to say. But it seems like many people did.

ShorsHammer2• 7 years ago

I find it hard to believe the most popular short around is actually good value to short much as I would with the most popular long.

It's just so often incorrect. Investing advice from mainstream sources isn't a good strategy.

_ea1k5• 7 years ago

Tesla never promised a $35k self-driving Model 3.

azhenley• 7 years ago

Since 2013 (when I started following Tesla stock), I have seen daily or weekly headlines about Tesla coming to an end.

myself248• 7 years ago

And in the long term, one of them is bound to be right. Just like people, the vast majority of companies that ever lived are also dead now.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate and support and enjoy them while they're here. Tesla's stated goal is to advance the state of transportation, and they can do that whether they're in it for the long term, or just shake things up for a while and force everyone else to catch up. Sort of like Tucker or Studebaker, IMHO.

I'm too young to have owned a Tucker when they were new, but I'd be proud to have done so. Whatever happens to Tesla, I want to be able to say I was part of it.

navigatesol6• 7 years ago

Since 2013 (when I started following Tesla stock), I have seen daily or weekly headlines about Tesla coming to an end.

I don't understand this argument. Not saying Tesla is Theranos, but Theranos ran on hope and dreams for 10 years. These things take time to play out.

leesec5• 7 years ago

The "Tesla Death Watch" started earlier than that. I think 2009.

Dumblydorr3• 7 years ago

The bears have been coming for them forever, as the bears repeatedly short the company and then write numerous negative articles with clickbait titles

imtringued5• 7 years ago

"The" Giga Factory doesn't exist anymore. There are three now and Tesla is shifting focus away from the first one because in China the demand is higher.

cinquemb4• 7 years ago

And here I was thinking that Caa1 partnering with A3 would change everything…

dalbasal7• 7 years ago

An ironic aspect of financing (from personal loans to multi-billion dollar deals) is that you can get it as long as you don't need it.

Google or FB would have no problem at all spending a measly $4.5bn on a project that potentially has real impact on their primary business (search,ads), or even secondary one (android, etc.). Their only problem is finding a way to spend it.

This is because Google makes software, and software doesn't really require much capital. The only thing they could realistically spend that kind of money on is m&a.

So, because they don't need it, google has many times that sum sitting around and could probably raise many times that sum again.

Because the only thing they could spend it on is m&a. If they do, the money goes to pay founders/investors in the target company....and back to to the "available to invest" pile of money collectively accumulating in software giants' balance sheets, VC & PE funds and such.

What rarely happens is actual spending.

If Tesla or another manufacturing company gets ahold of $5bn, they will actually spend it on parts, machinery and such.

The current money market is so loopy. All it can do is move money around. It can't spend it. It's like a real estate market in dense places like NY, but worse. Lots of money flies around, but it goes between one pocket and another. Very little goes towards building buildings. An investment in the gigafactory would be more like investing in a new city. It actually results in buildings, but isn't going to be attractive to investors, because... because it isn't a zero sum game. Other people can build a building too. There's no reason for your building to be worth more than it cost you to build.

countryqt30• 7 years ago

It just demonstrates that Google/FB/[SOFTWARE] is a wonderful business, and Tesla/Cars/[CAPITAL INTENSIVE] is a waste of money. The market realizes this pretty well, so most money goes into developing and funding new software companies.

gpresot2• 7 years ago

Both have pros and cons. Capital intensive businesses, once running, have their own barriers to entry (moats) "literally" built in: all those capital requirements help keep new entrants away. Capital-light business (and I am not sure the infrastructure investments to run a cloud service platform are so small), need to build this moat either by having access to consumer (data, network effects) and/or by keeping ahead of competition with constant innovation.

close04• 7 years ago

you can get it as long as you don't need it

There's another explanation for the statement above. The more you need the money, the grimmer the outlook is from the lender's perspective. So you're much more likely to secure capital/loan when you are already financially secure then when you are extended almost to the limit. And this is true regardless of the domain.

You give the money to make money so you're looking more at "sure wins" and less at risky bets.

dalbasal7• 7 years ago

Their pnl can tell you that. They certainly are wonderful businesses for investors. The only problem is that they don't need investors' money. All investor demand does is enrich previous investors. It doesn't enable/change anything that outside exists outside of bank accounts.

Investment in a manufacturing company like Tesla enables more cars to be built, technology to progress and probably lots of 2nd order effects via their supply chain.

_fizz_buzz_• 7 years ago

And by investing in more and more new software companies. The likelihood of them succeeding goes down. Roughly until an investment in a software company is as valuable as a hardware company.

cinquemb4• 7 years ago

An investment in the gigafactory would be more like investing in a new city.

Like a Chinese ghost city?

navigatesol6• 7 years ago

An investment in the gigafactory would be more like investing in a new city. It actually results in buildings, but isn't going to be attractive to investors, because... because it isn't a zero sum game.

Sorry, but businesses raise money for capital projects all the time. Tesla, itself, has raised billions to get to where they are today.

Maybe the Money People are smarter than you think, and are looking at the state of Tesla's business and saying, "if we lend them money for a factory they might not even require, will we ever be paid back?"

dalbasal7• 7 years ago

Of course it's related to the business proposition of investing in those companies. I never suggested otherwise. I'm talking about the consequences of the dynamic.

Most of the money invested in tech (excl early VC money, which is a small portion) very little is "true" capital investment. It's like the difference between investing in swappable corn notes and investing in seed corn which is going to be planted. One results in more corn. The other might be more profitable, depending on the year.

agumonkey2• 7 years ago

you can get it as long as you don't need it

read this in a poetry book about love. Many things in life are ultra hard to get when you're further away from it.. an hommage to the non linear multivariate nature of life maybe

jokowueu• 7 years ago

Name of book?

mikorym• 7 years ago

There is a potential workaround if it makes you feel better.

Get the thing in loan twice: that way you don't need any particular of the two.

Somewhat unfortunately, that latter statement is just as troublesome and can translate as "I am using you, x, as a way to make y feel jealous."

bredren• 7 years ago

Which book?

jimmy1• 7 years ago

All it can do is move money around.

Not to be pedantic, but this is exactly how the economy works. One person's spending is another person's income and vice versa. An alternative definition of an economy is "the way money moves around"

vidanay• 7 years ago

The difference is that historically there was some tangible and durable result from that transaction. A house was built, a ship was commissioned, a food was grown. In the last 50 years the intangible transaction has become prevalent so there is no obvious and lasting product of that movement of money from one pocket to another.

dalbasal7• 7 years ago

Agreed, it's impossible to comment on the subject (I'll admit it was off-hand and rantey) without either (a) being really long and boring or (b) offending pedantry.

If we're getting pedantic though... money doesn't just move around. It also comes in and out of existence.

To the larger point though, what I meant is money moving in and out of investment pools. If Tesla raises money to build a factory, the money they raised results in operating revenue upstream for parts makers, materials companies, builders, toolers.. If Google raises money to by a company, it just goes from one investment pool to another.

BTW.. in some economists conception of the market, banks and similar (not sure if a PE funds count) are not part of the economy. They're outside of it.

rorykoehler• 7 years ago

I think the point being made is not every dollar spent is equally as productive in the meat space.

golergka• 7 years ago

If they do, the money goes to pay founders/investors in the target company

And when Tesla spends it, the money goes to workers that perform the physical labour. These situations differ in amount of people getting rewarded and in how long these chains are, but in the end, you give money to people for exchange for something valuable they created.

dalbasal7• 7 years ago

They differ (at least that's what I was argueing) in terms of what happens with the money the moment after the investment happens.

If Google takes $5bn (imagine they don't have it) from a firm/fund to buy a software company, that money goes to founders and investors. In practice, the money went out of a an investment pool and into another one, staying in the macro-pool.

What happens when tesla takes $5bn is it comes out of the fund and goes to pay parts manufacturers, toolers, builders.. IE, it is spent in the "real" (in the sense that economists use th term) economy. One affects the ethereal world of bank balances and stock valuations. The other affects wages and production of goods and services.

Vinnl• 7 years ago

m&a

To clarify, this is an acronym for mergers and acquisitions. That wasn't immediately clear to me.

patentatt• 7 years ago

My 2 cents: the only categories of “real” value are human life (measured in time, i.e., wages) and non-renewable resources (land, minerals, etc.) Building buildings takes a lot of both, so it is a “real” expenditure. Software is more-or-less a service good that only transfers money from one party to another. An implication of the US divesting it’s manufacturing capacity to China is that there’s a lot more “just” moving money around and a lot less building “real” value.

lotsofpulp• 7 years ago

I don't see the irony. The lender wishes to purchases a future stream of payments, and is willing to accept a certain amount of risk proportionate to the interest rate they are willing to lend at. The borrower wishes to purchase cash now, in exchange for paying it back in the future plus some amount of interest.

The only question is whether or not a lender is willing to sell their cash now at an interest rate that the borrower finds agreeable. Sometimes, if you really have a bad track record, you can't get any financing, but in most cases financing is available, just not at an interest rate the borrower is willing to pay. The borrower also has the option of obtaining financing via selling equity.

Bottom line, financing is available at terms that have positive expected value for the person with the cash, not based on how much the borrower needs it or not, as with all other vendor - consumer relationships.

nabla9• 7 years ago

The article tells different story. Why you think it's wrong?

naveen99• 7 years ago

An ironic aspect of financing (from personal loans to multi-billion dollar deals) is that you can get it as long as you don't need it.

It has nothing to do with need, just ability to pay back. It's mostly about leverage. When you have no money, leverage won't get you very far because 2 x 0 is 0. But if you have some money, you can leverage it, 2 x 1 = 2.

If you have a billion dollars, and try to over leverage by taking a 100 billion dollar loan, they won't let you do it, unless you are powerful enough to create a world financial crisis.

yeahitslikethat• 7 years ago

Maybe Google could spend that money figuring out how to stop making money on pirated content instead of saying the problem is too hard because it happens too much.

shereadsthenews• 7 years ago

Google is one of the world’s largest makers of computers and network equipment and spent $26 billion on capital in 2018, more than ten times what Tesla invested in capital. Your entire analysis here is completely backwards.

dalbasal7• 7 years ago

Google is a far larger company than Tesla.

api• 7 years ago

It makes me wonder how "real" our GDP and other paper money measures are. If the money can't be spent on actual stuff, does it actually exist?

petra• 7 years ago

Much of that money goes to pay software engineers. And they pay rent or purchase homes, like everybody else.

foobarbazetc• 7 years ago

An ironic aspect of financing (from personal loans to multi-billion dollar deals) is that you can get it as long as you don't need it.

Truer words have never been spoken. I remember when our startup had to fight to get a $5k credit card from Chase. Now our Amex LoC is like 750k @ 6% and it’s useless.

coolio2657• 7 years ago

dalbasal, I feel like you're quietly sitting on a fascinating analysis of a facet of the modern economy. Mind sharing the sources of your knowledge so I can learn about it myself, either in the form of books, or articles?

MobileVet• 7 years ago

The technology is clearly the key piece of Tesla... and while that scales well, the platform is another story.

Imagine if Toyota bought Tesla. That may be the best outcome possible as the platform would suddenly be at scale.

The technology could be added to all Toyota cars ICE included (with their level of fit and finish) and the ‘electric only’ line would be supported while it ramped up and lowered cost.

This would solve a lot of Tesla’s problems and make the outcome far more likely to be positive. As it stands, I want a Tesla, but I am not going to buy one because 1) cost vs quality 2) likelihood of implosion

cinquemb4• 7 years ago

Well Moody's thinks the Toyota x Panasonic is credit positive… not sure they would think they same of Tesla acquisition at $2xx/share… though maybe Toyota would be interested (among others) in swooping up assets pennies on the dollar from default in an auction…

aNoob70002• 7 years ago

Unfortunately for Tesla, at its current valuation, nobody is going to buy it.

The race now is between established players catching up to Tesla and its technology, and Tesla catching up to established players with their capacity to produce cars at scale.

lazyjones5• 7 years ago

Unfortunately for Tesla, at its current valuation, nobody is going to buy it.

A stock-for-stock merger is also a possibility, it's been done before.

threeseed3• 7 years ago

If you look at the Volvo Polestar it is easily a peer of Tesla and far exceeds it on the software front with the partnership with Google.

And the car companies are playing in mass market segments that Tesla isn't in e.g. Kia Soul, Renault Zoe, Ford Focus, VW e-Golf etc.

mrtksn4• 7 years ago

What technology exactly do the established players are catching up to?

I'm under impression that the value of Tesla comes from the brand itself and Elon Musk's persona. The tech itself is nothing special, they are far behind in autonomous driving but the brand is very strong, they easily upsell "one day it will be autonomous" packages.

konschubert• 7 years ago

Or maybe Tesla’s valuation catching up with its capacity to produce and sell cars at scale.

Dumblydorr3• 7 years ago

You cannot just plug and play, Toyota's vehicles dont have the requisite chassis and space for the battery pack. They'd have to redesign their cars from the ground up, and they're too busy with hybrids and fuel cells to undertake a bev revolution.

nihonde4• 7 years ago

Toyota and Panasonic announced a battery tech partnership in January. They also partnered with Mazda and licensed all their EV patents. If you follow them closely in JDM, they have lots of EV concept vehicles in play.

bildung• 7 years ago

What exactly is Teslas technology advantage? Pure electric cars are fundamentally simpler cars than both ICE and of course hybrid models. And most other brands had hybrid models for a long time. I seriously doubt any established car manufacturer longs for Teslas technology.

Reason0773• 7 years ago

They have some advantage in drivetrain technology. Their switched-reluctance permanent magnet technology is probably at least a couple of years ahead of the competition.

Compare the efficiency of their vehicles (especially the Model 3), to something like the I-Pace or e-tron.

But Tesla’s real advantage lies in it’s software, it’s autopilot, it’s economies of scale in battery production, and it’s supercharger network. Competitors will eventually catch up with all this stuff, but it won’t happen overnight.

loudmax• 7 years ago

According to manufacturing analysts Munro & Associates, Tesla's electric motors are significantly ahead of the competition. A lot of detail and engineering has gone into squeezing efficiency and performance out of the Model 3. Just because electric motors are simpler than ICE doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

The other piece of technology Tesla has is the driving data from all those cars on the road already. This is an important asset for autonomous driving because machine learning benefits from greater volumes of data.

Neither one of these puts Tesla so far ahead of the game that the competition can't catch up. But they're real advantages that could keep Tesla in the game if they can sort out their manufacturing process.

Reason0773• 7 years ago

”Imagine if Toyota bought Tesla. That may be the best outcome possible”

Culturally it may not be a good fit. Toyota, now days, is very conservative and risk-averse, and a Tesla under Toyota ownership may not have the freedom it needs to continue the kind of moon-shot innovation and investment that has got it where it is now.

From Toyota’s perspective, there’s nothing to stop them building high quality EVs in high volume and competing with Tesla. They don’t need to buy Tesla to do that.

nihonde4• 7 years ago

Toyota is the tortoise and Tesla is the hare. Tesla’s lasting contribution will be shifting US consumer sentiment on electric vehicles. Previously, Americans were quick to mock electric vehicles and showed zero interest in the infrastructure investments required to make them work. Of course companies like Toyota have been burned many times by capricious foreign markets that are susceptible to jingoism and manipulation by oil concerns, etc. They took a wait-and-see approach. Once the market appetite is proven, they move with alacrity and eat this segment alive.

I’m posting this now so I can say “told you so” in three years.

hopler• 7 years ago

Toyota claims that there is no market for high volume non-hybdrid EV.

https://insideevs.com/toyota-no-ev-because-it-wont-sell/

samfisher833• 7 years ago

Toyota has made the Prius for a decade+. It has a hybrid drive train which is more complicated than an electric drive train. They just need to increase the electric drive train and pull out ice one.

SECProto4• 7 years ago

Even more importantly, they've made the Prius Plug-in Hybrid for 7 years - it already has a big enough electric motor to drive it alone (up to 135 km/h), and a plug-in charging system.

papermill• 7 years ago

Toyota, along with most Japanese car manufacturers, are betting big on hydrogen cars. They still invest in electric cars, but their main focus is on hydrogen-fueled cars. So I doubt they'll be buying TSLA.

Here is a good article on the direction of the japanese car industry.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/japan-bets-on-a-h...

yungchin• 7 years ago

I'm not sure this is bad news for Tesla, I'd say it's mostly bad news for the rest of us.

Tesla has reached enough scale to be more or less sustainable (in the sense that they don't need to be posting losses anymore), and I'd imagine they can continue to grow, if more slowly, without the rapid expansion of battery production capacity that this story is about.

But the great aim behind the gigafactory (at least, how I read it) was to drive battery cost down very aggressively, that is, working on the supply-side economics. This would then make EVs (not just Teslas) accessible to more people sooner, without all the subsidies (which have been a demand-side hack that didn't even work very well). If this means a slower clean transition (and I think it does) that's a sad outcome.

GrumpyNl• 7 years ago

Countries everywhere are taking down the subsidizing of electric cars ( In holland called, the Tesla-subsidie). This will hugely effect Tesla sales when they dont have an affordable car.

T-A• 7 years ago

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-electric-taxcredit-...

philwelch2• 7 years ago

Tesla itself don't have to be the ones manufacturing the batteries. Given that manufacturing seems to be the part of the value chain that Tesla is the worst at, I don't think the gigafactory was ever going to be that valuable or effective anyway.

hindsightbias• 7 years ago

It was all the rage not for back that Tesla was a battery company, not a car company.

If they’re not scaling cars or batteries, then peak Tesla would be inevitable.

imtringued5• 7 years ago

Their battery factory is Tesla's primary competitive advantage. They are far ahead of almost any other manufacturer in terms of battery chemistry (<3% cobalt [0], less lithium, etc) and battery pack manufacturing (first to do thermal management -> long battery life).

[0] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-batteries-cobalt-vol...

clouddrover4• 7 years ago

This would then make EVs (not just Teslas) accessible to more people sooner

Volkswagen will be taking orders for their new electric hatchback in a month. It's Europe only at this stage though:

https://www.electrive.com/2019/03/13/vw-id-3-introduced-it-i...

The cheapest variant is supposed to be priced under 30,000 euros. But let's see what the price and availability is like in a month.

samfisher833• 7 years ago

Its pretty bad news. I think the most important part of the electric car is the battery. Electric cars were more popular that the gas car car a 100 years ago. The crappy battery is why gas is more popular today.

MuffinFlavored• 7 years ago

What do the Tesla betters need to evolve into/achieve to not be deemed crappy anymore? What are the metrics we want to see that we don't have yet?

RivieraKid2• 7 years ago

It will be extremely hard for Tesla to be break-even or better.

breakyerself2• 7 years ago

I think the Chinese operations are going to source batteries in China. Not sure if that means battery production in gigafactory 3 or not, but it should mean lithium ion production should continue to expand. Not to mention all the new entrants into the EV market. Lithium ion battery production should continue to increase and bring prices down. I'm hoping we see a $25,000 BEV with 200+ Mile range in the next 5 years.

cjhopman2• 7 years ago

Tesla has reached enough scale to be more or less sustainable (in the sense that they don't need to be posting losses anymore)

I really wish that Tesla had reached that point as that would mean that it's almost possible to profitably produce electric cars, but they clearly haven't.

taf2• 7 years ago

Could this have anything to do with the Tesla acquisition of Maxwell? Perhaps there is a different battery technology on the horizon that won't require the same infrastructure with Panasonic?

RivieraKid2• 7 years ago

No, Panasonic is worried about demand and doesn't want to throw money out of the window.

Footkerchief• 7 years ago

Because I took away the wrong message from the headline, and others might too:

Tesla and Panasonic are freezing plans to expand the capacity of their Gigafactory 1, the world's largest EV battery plant, as concerns mount on Wall Street about weakening demand at Elon Musk's car company.

Freezing expansion, not production.

lr• 7 years ago

I know Elon loves cars (and rockets), but what about selling batteries for other things? BMW sells its batteries for electric vessels (boats). It would be great (for the world at large) if Tesla did the same.

rtkwe• 7 years ago

They are. They'd done a few deployments for grid power and are selling the Powerwall. (Or were I haven't followed it since I'm not looking to install solar anytime soon)

jaimex2• 7 years ago

This makes sense with GF3 coming online so quickly. The original plans to keep expanding GF1 may not be needed if GF3 can do it better and more cheaply.

chisleu2• 7 years ago

They have already spent $4.5B which are creating all of the batteries for the model 3.

They are pausing spending of an additional $100-150M until Tesla needs the additional capacity. They don't yet need it.

What a terrible title...

cjhopman2• 7 years ago

You either misinterpreted the article or pulled numbers out of your ass as they are almost 10x off of what the article states.

"It was reportedly considering putting an additional 100 billion yen to 150 billion yen ($900 million to $1.35 billion) into the Gigafactory."

chisleu2• 7 years ago

"reportedly"

That wasn't the actual investment up for consideration, and it's not needed yet because Model 3's production is satisfied, hence Tesla is offering longer range versions of the model 3 without the extra motor/AWD.

gr2020• 7 years ago

From Electrek [1]: A Tesla spokesperson has reportedly commented on Nikkei’s report:

“We will of course continue to make new investments in Gigafactory 1, as needed,”

Update: In a comment to Electrek, Tesla exapnded:

“We will of course continue to make new investments in Gigafactory 1, as needed. However, we think there is far more output to be gained from improving existing production equipment than was previously estimated.”

[1] https://electrek.co/2019/04/11/tesla-panasonic-suspend-inves...

AndrewBissell2• 7 years ago

The most interesting part of this story is that Panasonic has chosen to broadcast this decision in a national newspaper in way calculated to cause maximum embarrassment to Tesla, which still depends on investor perceptions of huge upcoming growth to support its stock valuation.

An odd thing happened last year when Pana's reported margins dropped while Tesla's went way up during their "miracle Q3." A common theory among Tesla shorts was that Pana had helped them make the quarter with a discount on batteries, to be paid back at some point in the future. Given the big drop in Q1 deliveries and demand standstill in the U.S. after the Model 3 order backlog was depleted, maybe Panasonic is worried they're not going to get paid back?

AndrewBissell2• 7 years ago

A good Twitter thread on this subject here: https://twitter.com/BradMunchen/status/1112668005614252032

QuantumGood• 7 years ago

"We are seeing significant gains from upgrading existing lines to increase output, which allows Tesla and Panasonic to achieve the same output with less spent on new equipment purchases."

Tesla and Panasonic freeze spending on $4.5B Gigafactory

Related Stories