That's true, but I'm not sure it makes any more sense than car carriers. The cells that Tesla users for their battery packs are commodity products. Why would you bother to try to manufacture those? I mean, batteries are core to Apple's business too, but they aren't producing them.
The value-add is in their pack technology. The move back to vertical integration is odd.
Not in the volumes Tesla will require over the next decade. I have a hunch that every EV manufacturer that tries to get serious about volume production (> 1 million vehicles per year, say) will hit a brick wall of supply shortage. There either won't be enough cell production capacity available, or competing manufacturers will bid it up enough to seriously impact the profitability of the vehicles.
Until EVs are established as the obviously best alternative for most vehicles, global production capacity will lag to the degree that in-house battery cell production is a necessary strategic advantage.
Add that to the fact that the ~90% efficiency of electric drivetrains makes single-digit improvements in component properties hugely impactful on the economics of the final product, and battery cells seems like something that should mainly not be outsourced.
There's a similar effect with the component properties. Really, you are looking at the properties per dollar spent, so if you take a wrong term, in-sourcing costs you relative to the market.
I think the same will be true for batteries. They won't be making a copy of the Panasonic cell design. They will only become a manufacturer if there is some advantage to be gained. They will probably seek to integrate IP from their Maxwell acquisition and improvements from their research group in Canada.
That's what they think. What do you think? Do you think it's possible for a single player to be the best builder in everything?
When it comes to manufacturing, the world is flattening out. You can produce things from components built and sourced all over the world. But Tesla is going in the other direction. One has to at least question their reasoning, and not assume "Elon knows best".
For commodities like semiconductors it would be insane to try and open your own fab: those players are so much more sophisticated than anyone else. For mechanical components I think they logic is a lot more complicated. In a phrase: it depends. I’ve been working in product development for a few years and have been to overseas factories to help set up assembly lines. Some suppliers are fantastic and we won’t beat the quality / price. Others just don’t seem to get it and we’ll spend months and many engineering hours basically teaching them how to build what we need. It’s those cases where I would personally prefer to be more vertically integrated.