> No battery tech
I thought Tesla’s batteries are fairly run of the mill. The competitive advantage is they’re producing them at scale. That’s a moat, but an expensive one to maintain. Cutting prices would seem to remain a mistake.
I thought Tesla’s batteries are fairly run of the mill. The competitive advantage is they’re producing them at scale. That’s a moat, but an expensive one to maintain. Cutting prices would seem to remain a mistake.
What's stopping any of the other vehicle manufacturers from entering a joint venture agreement with any of the other large battery manufacturers?
Tesla designed and makes everything else, and that's a lot. The technology that goes into making sure that the battery lasts a long time, works decently in cold and hot, can be charged at high speeds, doesn't explode etc. is very sophisticated and no other car maker has this knowledge in house.
Even at the battery cell level Tesla doesn't just rely on Panasonic. Browse LinkedIn a bit and you'll see that they have in-house R&D for battery cells, they sponsor well-known cell-level academic researchers and they just spent over $200 million on Maxwell Technologies to get their cell-level IP.
The first thing that stops other car makers from making big moves in the battery space is lack of conviction. They still act like they are only half-convinced that EVs are 100% of their future in very short order (speaking relatively in car business years).
And the second thing that stops them is massive investments needed to build their own battery gigafactories.
Third is probably lack of internal expertise (which Tesla was building since the days of roadster).
Even those most committed (like Volksvagen) project for 2025 maybe 1/4th of (projected) Tesla's production.
Fun fact: Volkswagen wants to partner with SK Technologies on battery factories.
Reportedly their current supplier (LG Chem) threatened to cut them off if they proceed.
It's unprecedented for a supplier to threaten their biggest buyer which should tell you the current distribution of power in battery technology.
or think "the individual cells that make up the tesla battery pack".
Apple maintains their edge because it's their proprietary design. Tesla may do the same.
Is Telsa’s battery tech and production advantage a big enough differentor to enable them to lay waste to all the other large auto producers?
I don’t believe so. It’s hard to imagine a future where Tesla is the only car manufacturer.
They're not the only phone/tablet/smartwatch manufacturer though.
Not all consumers care for 'best in $metric' products, and where consumer priorities differ, opportunities for others exist. IE, Tesla can maintain their advantages without the rest of the industry disappearing, it's not a zero-sum game.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-22/toyota...
This has just been confirmed:
>CATL has been discussing the required specifications for the batteries with Tesla officials, the people said, asking not to be named because the talks are private.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-11/tesla-is-...
The performance and degradation of the battery packs is absolutely unparalleled at this time and it remains to be seen when any other company will catch up to them.
>Cells used in Model 3 are the highest energy density cells used in any electric vehicle. We have achieved this by significantly reducing cobalt content per battery pack while increasing nickel content and still maintaining superior thermal stability. The cobalt content of our Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminum cathode chemistry is already lower than next-generation cathodes that will be made by other cell producers with a Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt ratio of 8:1:1. As a result, even with its battery, the gross weight of Model 3 is on par with its gasoline-powered counterparts.
http://electrek.co/2018/05/02/tesla-tsla-releases-q1-results...
I'm sure you have nuanced opinions but you aren't taking the time to read, think about and actually answer what you're replying to, so why should anybody care what you have to say?
Churchill put it best: A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Source: http://ir.tesla.com/static-files/1b240f1e-b519-4b40-b14b-fea...