
VW Just Gave Tesla a $25B Battery Shock - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-13/vw-secures-25-billion-battery-supplies-in-electric-car-surge
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sharpercoder
I wonder more and more where the massive battery production increase will get
their cobalt from. Production in the coming 5 years will be _multiplied_ ,
maybe even towards a different _magnitude_! As such, the cobalt and lithium
demand will scale in the same fold. Lithium is relatively widespread (compared
to cobalt), so while it gets harder to get lithium (and more expensive), it
will not be impossible.

Cobalt however is quite a different story. What are the producers planning to
do? Dig up half Congo?

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codeulike
Tesla say they are going to source their cobalt from North America, here's an
in depth analysis from techcrunch that looks at the feasibility of that:

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-
tesla/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/)

Tldr: it _might_ be feasible

~~~
dogma1138
How exactly? the only producer of Cobalt in North America on a large scale is
Canada and it doesn't look like even if Tesla reserves Canada's entire
production of Cobalt that it would be enough.

[https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/cobalt/mcs...](https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/cobalt/mcs-2017-cobal.pdf)

Edit: It could be enough for the time being as Tesla seem to still source a
lot (likely most) of it's batteries from the global supply chain and not
making everything in house, but if the Gigafactory goes full steam and Tesla
does start producing even low to mid double digit percentage of the cells they
predict they'll need for both EV and their energy storage (SolarCity) I think
Elon might need to buy whatever Blackwater is calling themselves today and
invade the DRP.

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cmrdporcupine
Almost every week there's a headline about VW/Audi and electric cars which
becomes far less exciting once you read past the first paragraph and see that
it's "by 2022" or often later.

They are doing their best to look forward moving and progressive in the wake
of dieselgate. But to me it seems like all optics and vapourware. Even the
e-Golf, not really a bad product, is only available in very tiny numbers.
They've dropped all hybrids from their lineup in North America except for the
weakly sold and rather mediocre spec'd A3 e-Tron.

Basically, I'll believe it when I see the cars in showrooms and dealer lots
and in monthly sales reports. Until then, I'm still angry about what happened
with my diesel Jetta.

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zeta0134
Warning: article has auto-playing video with sound.

(Rule query: is it appropriate to suggest a [video] tag for articles like
these?)

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panarky
In chrome navigate to chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy and change to "document
user activation is required".

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jasonjackson
Isn't tesla's competitive advantage that they don't buy their batteries from
the current supply chains? Even the total world's supply of lithium ion
batteries wouldn't be enough to provide for model 3 program.

~~~
SEJeff
That and they have some of the best battery scientists working for them. John
Goodenough was a co-inventor of the lithium ion battery and works for/with
Tesla on refining their chemistry and battery tech. JB Straubel is also widely
considered one of the world's foremost battery experts, who happens to have
been at Tesla longer than Elon Musk. Then there is Jeff Dahn and his
university's partnership with Tesla on longevity, etc. Tesla is a battery
company who happens to sell cars (and giant battery packs for electric grid
storage).

~~~
toomuchtodo
I give Musk a lot of credit for giving JB Straubel the latitude to just Get
Shit Done. It’s clear he’s adopted the “hire smart people and do what they
tell you” mantra, and it’s paying off.

~~~
SEJeff
Entirely agreed! I was just pointing out that Tesla's "business moat" is in
their people, who literally lead or created the industry which they're
dominant in (battery tech for their electric vehicles).

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exabrial
Nice.

Though I still wish we had 'something other than batteries'. Batteries can
barely charge at their max discharge rate, meaning you can discharge at 75mph
but charge at 30mph :(

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codeulike
The question is what $ per kWh are VW going to get out of the deal? The
challenge is not just sourcing lots of batteries, the challenge is to make
them cheaper.

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spiderfarmer
I wonder how CATL is getting their cobalt. Is it coming from the conflict
mines in Congo, where 4 year old kids are sorting the rocks?

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gok
> Manufacturing the powerpacks themselves is not in the cards. “This is not
> one of our core competencies,” said Mueller, who has faced pressure from
> employee representatives to invest in battery-cell production. “Others can
> do it better than we can.”

Well at least we don't have to worry about the power packs cheating on on
range tests.

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forgotmypw
What does this title even mean? Down with clickbait. Flagged.

~~~
kristianp
This might be a better version of the same story:

[https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/volkswagen-bets-big-
on-...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/volkswagen-bets-big-on-electric-
with-25-billion-battery-bonanza/)

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zlo
Willtheir electric cars be as clean as their "clean" diesel?

