My take: Panasonic is moving its chips from Tesla to Toyota/Mazda and betting the incumbent Japanese makers will be better positioned to capitalize on EV sales over the long term. It’s not strange for a 100+ year old company playing the long game. I also think Tesla’s function for many of its suppliers was to prove that Americans will buy EVs, and their expectations are fairly low about how much more Tesla will accomplish.
Well the weird thing is Panasonic is complaining about not selling enough batteries. Seems kinda crazy considering the rapid scale of Tesla's ramp up, not to mention secondary uses like powerwalls and grid sized battery systems.
I won't speculate why Panasonic is putting the brakes on. Could be anything from financing to some new guy at Panasonic not liking the color choices of the Model Y.
But it is telling us something that the most integrated of Tesla's partners is putting on the brakes. And I remember some reports about less then optimal conditions in the giga factory. And these conditions, even if they are only half true, would the opposite of what Japanese companies would like to see
People who did not experience the 80s, and the endless nightly news stories about Japanese school kids’ math test scores, will not understand your comment.
Japan is a small, rich and overpopulated country of 126 million; China is a still emerging, vast country of 1.4 billion. I don't think it's correct to assume history will repeat the same way as with Japan.
