
The Breakneck Rise of China’s Colossus of Electric-Car Batteries - neya
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-01/the-breakneck-rise-of-china-s-colossus-of-electric-car-batteries
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kjksf
This article uses outdated numbers which make CATL look better (compared to
Tesla) than it does.

They list Tesla Gigafactory as making ~30 GWh and that (well, 35 GWh) was the
initial plan.

Current projections are that Gigafactory, when completed in 2020, will make
150 GWh of batteries ([https://insideevs.com/elon-musk-says-gigafactory-
output-coul...](https://insideevs.com/elon-musk-says-gigafactory-output-could-
soar-to-150-gwh-annually/)).

CATL is estimated to be 50 GWh by 2020 so only 1/3 of estimated Gigafactory.

In fact, the current projections is that by 2020 Tesla will make 150 GWh, all
of China ~100 GWh and the rest of the world ~50 GWh so Tesla will be making
half of all world's batteries.

It's also not surprising. Article said that CATL is raising $2 billion.
Gigafactory 1 will cost $5 billion (at least $1.6 billion financed by
Panasonic).

That assumes no further investment from Tesla and it's almost certain that
they'll start building one or two more gigafactories before 2020 (although it
does take 6 years to fully build one). Musk was already talking publicly about
european factory and this december there were rumors about china factory.

I collect those tidbits of data: [https://www.notion.so/Tesla-
watch-4bed70edb73b46c380e2762a0b...](https://www.notion.so/Tesla-
watch-4bed70edb73b46c380e2762a0bdafcb1)

~~~
richardknop
Where will Musk get money to build another 2 Gigafactories? If one costs $5
billion, he would need a big round of new funding. Also Tesla as business is
burning through cash at a quick pace so that will need more cash to sustain
itself as well. Do you think Tesla will need to raise / borrow another 10-15
billion?

~~~
greglindahl
TSLA's market cap is a lot bigger than $5 billion, and they have a history of
being able to raise money.

If you want to bet against that, by all means, short the stock.

~~~
richardknop
Now that interest rates are rising it might be more difficult to raise
billions of dollars, especially after history of consistently underdelivering
and over promising that Tesla has. That their losses have been growing and no
signs of being profitable is also a problem.

------
ak39
I've spent the weekend watching videos of and reading about converting classic
cars (VW Beetles, Porsche 911s and others) into electric powered vehicles
(some of them gloriously restored!). It was exciting to learn this:

1\. Electric conversion is about three things: batteries, chargers and motors.
Of these three, batteries have been the least technologically convenient
aspect of converting to electric - until recently. For years batteries have
remained heavy and expensive, rendering them inefficient for use to power
modern vehicles (it's all about size for the kW). Electric motor tech and
battery charging tech have been past their "S" curves and are considered
mature, buyers being spoilt for choice.

2\. Over the last 5 years, battery tech has improved both in size-to-power
ratios as well as in dramatic reduction in costs - and there's more to come.
(Soon with graphene and Samsung we will have 5x speed in recharging). The tide
is definitely changing on the battery tech front. All three factors for
electric conversion now make electric powered vehicles (that can do more than
200km daily) a viable possibility - eve for home DIY conversion.

3\. It is not surprising therefore to see a growing cottage industry of DIY
electric conversion kits in the US already. (Google "DIY electric car kit")

ICE (internal combustion engine) motor companies have always kept their R&D
and production process of powerful and efficient motors as their competitive
advantage. That's their mojo. The gas motor and drive train technology is
essentially the car that customers have been buying. This is the very heart of
the industry at threat. 3 components and goodbye to a century of battle-test
crankshafts, pistons, intake manifolds and injection designs! Gone.

It is my humble opinion that we ought to be more excited about the DIY home
kits for electric vehicles instead of the Teslas and big automakers.

~~~
jacobolus
> [...] _we ought to be more excited about the DIY home kits for electric
> vehicles instead of the Teslas and big automakers._

Can you explain why? Who is “we”? Are you anticipating that a sizable fraction
of the 1+ billion gas cars in the world are going to be converted by DIY home
kits? I personally can’t imagine hundreds of millions of DIY conversions (or
even professional conversions).

Practically what I care about is (a) getting fossil fuel burning out of my
neighborhood (and out of places where people live, in general), and (b)
dramatically reducing the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere, on a
global scale. As far as I can tell the way we will get there is by sales of
new electric cars largely supplanting gas cars over the next 2 decades or so
(also pickup trucks, buses, delivery trucks, freight shipping trucks, etc.).

Policymakers can speed this up by tightening emissions standards for all
vehicles, banning ICE cars from some roads or areas, increasing fuel taxes,
subsidizing electric cars, funding basic research in battery technology, etc.

------
sharpercoder
Any information on what current western car manufacturers are planning for
battery production capacity? The story of Nissan and Tesla is known by now.
But I don't read a lot about most other producers.

~~~
krona
One I know of is Williams Advanced Engineering who are building a battery
factory for Aston Martin. That's fairly low volume, however.

Another is the quite significant investments Dyson are making in EV
technology; they plan to build an EV car by 2020 but details are sparse.

Probably the most significant, however, is Swiss engineering group ABB, who
plan to build Europe’s largest lithium-ion battery factory in Sweden targeting
annual cell production equivalent to 32 gigawatt-hours by 2023, over 90
percent of Tesla’s Gigafactory target. [0]

[0] [http://new.abb.com/news/detail/2121/abb-and-northvolt-
partne...](http://new.abb.com/news/detail/2121/abb-and-northvolt-partner-for-
europes-largest-battery-factory)

~~~
kjksf
The number for Tesla is outdated. 35 GWh was initial plan.

The current estimate 150 GWh by 2020 ([https://insideevs.com/elon-musk-says-
gigafactory-output-coul...](https://insideevs.com/elon-musk-says-gigafactory-
output-could-soar-to-150-gwh-annually/)).

Which is kind of needed to build as many cars as they want.

Only half of batteries will go to cars (the other half to residential
powerpacks and commercial deployments like the one in Australia) which is 75
GWh.

At average 75 kWh batter per car, it's just enough to build 1 million Tesla 3
cars a year, which is not that much and well within Tesla's projections by
2020.

That doesn't include even more battery hungry Tesla trucks and roadsters and S
and X, which is why it's safe to say that before 2020 Tesla will have to start
building another Gigafactory to deliver the cars they've already promised.

~~~
xbmcuser
The next Tesla giga factory might even be in China or India instead of the US
they already plan to build a car factory in China. Depends on the capacity
utilization if all the batteries produced in the US can be used in NA and
Europe it would make better sense to build another giga factory in China or
India for the Asian market. Toyota so far has been pro hydrogen instead of
pure electric but that has changed in the last few months to me once Toyota
goes all in on electric the world will move to electric cars a lot quicker
than most are expecting.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "once Toyota goes all in on electric the world will move to electric cars a
> lot quicker than most are expecting."

I don't know what the car market is like where you live, but where I live the
majority of people only buy used cars (because of the lower cost). This is
possible because of a surplus in supply of once-new cars. If we're going to
get past the tipping point for electric cars, I'd suggest we'd need to see one
of three things happen:

1\. New electric cars sold at a price point that can compete with the used car
market.

2\. An increase in popularity in electric car conversions (whether DIY or done
by a professional).

3\. Wait until the early electric car models trickle down to the used car
market.

~~~
thinkythought
electric cars depreciate ridiculously fast right now. I can buy a couple year
old leaf with really low miles for $5000 right now in seattle, and i have tons
of choices. Even the up-range models from the past years are under 10k. This
also applies to up-market stuff like the I3, etc.

We haven't seen how this will hit say, stuff like the bolt, but basically
everyone but tesla got hit was outrageous depreciation.

If that keeps up, electric cars could become a similar price choice for a lot
of people who don't need to drive all that far, even if they're the earlier
low-range models. This could be further incentivized by stuff like free HOV
access and free charging some places a lot of locations enjoy.

