According to Nikkei News, Panasonic will start producing Tesla’s new 4680 battery in 2021 and plans to build new production lines in its existing factories. The project is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.
Outsourcing production to Panasonic is a fast way to increase production to meet the huge demand for batteries and can also help share some of the early costs.
However, it’s strange that Tesla previously announced that the 4680 battery would be produced on its own production line, and Elon revealed on Twitter that the 4680 battery will first be used in the Model Y produced at the Berlin factory.
According to Nikkei News, if Panasonic is building new production lines in its existing factories, it is likely to be at the Gigafactory 1 in Nevada, and if Berlin is the first to use the battery, it will have to be shipped from the United States to Germany. This is obviously not reasonable, and Tesla’s factory in Berlin also has the capacity to produce batteries. Elon stated at a battery conference in Europe that the Berlin battery factory plans to have a production capacity of 200-250 GWh.
Nevertheless, it’s a good thing to see the mass production of the 4680 battery in 2021.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.