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Tesla Accused of Singlehandedly Creating a Global Shortage of Battery Cells

The whole reason behind building the multi-billion dollars Gigafactory was to ensure Tesla vehicles would never be at the hand of third-party suppliers when it came to the vehicles' most vital component: their batteries.
Tesla's precious 1 photo
Photo: YouTube screenshot, modified
The American carmaker teamed up with Japanese specialist Panasonic to create the world's largest battery manufacturing plant, but despite the impressive figures, a few years ago it had emerged that it was there where the bottleneck blamed for the Model 3 production delay was located.

However, the issue identified had nothing to do with the cells itself, but the battery modules assembly, which shouldn't have any impact on the global cylindrical battery (18650 and 21700 standards) market. And yet South Korean website etnews places the blame on Tesla's Nevada plant for what it calls a "global shortage."

“It is impossible to purchase cylindrical batteries within Japan, and we were even notified by Panasonic that they are not going to sell cylindrical batteries anymore,” said a representative for a Japanese battery distributor, quoted by the publication. “It has come to a point where we cannot even purchase products from Samsung and LG and even products from Samsung and LG that were produced in China.”

The four biggest world battery manufacturers are LG Chemicals, Murata, Panasonic, and Samsung SDI which account for over 80 percent of the market between them. Tesla is mostly working with Panasonic - though its Australian Powerpack Farm project uses Samsung SDI cells - who is said to send cells produced in Japan to be used in Tesla vehicles to make up for the low Gigafacotry output.

Suddenly, the other manufacturers were left with a big gap in the market to fill, and since the demand for this type of battery cells is on the rise - with more and more devices going cordless - some companies are going to be left out.

Whether the situation is indeed as bleak as etnews describes it or not, one thing is certain: a lot of industries, including the automotive one, are going to need more batteries than what the suppliers can currently offer. Some other carmakers have announced similar projects to Tesla's Gigafactory as they begin to ramp up their EV production, even though on a slightly smaller scale. Will it be enough? We sincerely hope somebody's done the calculations, otherwise the EV revolution might have to be postponed.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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