Tesla has confirmed that it has a contract with South Korean firm LG Chem to provide batteries for Roadster 3.0, a package of range-enhancing improvements for Tesla’s famous first vehicle. The company began taking orders for the $29,000 upgrade in September. Until this announcement, Tesla’s only known battery supplier was Panasonic, which is a partner… Read more »
Tesla’s new 4680 cell features a new chemistry that promises to boost efficiency and reduce costs. Now Panasonic says it is investing heavily in the development of the new cell, and plans to start mass production as early as 2023. The new cell is about twice the size of Tesla’s current 2170 cell, but has… Read more »
When I was a kid, everyone had a favorite Beatle (mine was George). Now I have a favorite Tesla co-founder: JB Straubel. He’s a visionary who converted a Porsche to electric drive and built a solar-powered racer, long before EVs were cool. He’s the engineering genius who personally went through and redesigned almost every component… Read more »
As EVs move into mass production, the industry is going to need an insane—make that ludicrous—amount of batteries. Trendsetter Tesla long relied solely on Japan’s Panasonic for cells, but around the time production began at Gigafactory Shanghai, it started working with other suppliers, including Korea’s LG and China’s CATL. Tesla and CATL signed a supply… Read more »
Over the last few years, Tesla has been diversifying its battery supply chain, working with new suppliers and trying out new chemistries in its cells. Gigafactory Shanghai, which is geographically close to the Asian firms that currently supply most of the world’s Li-ion cells, has been the center of the automaker’s brave new battery biz…. Read more »
A recent report that Tesla is aiming to acquire a stake in LG’s soon-to-be-separate battery business sent shares in the Korean electronics giant soaring. However, it appears to be too early to tell if and how such an acquisition will take place. LG Chem announced in mid-September that it plans to spin off its battery… Read more »
In the first quarter of 2020, EV battery suppliers deployed 20.5 GWh of capacity globally, down from 26.5 GWh in the fourth quarter, and 20.9 GWh during the first quarter of 2019, according to data from Adamas Intelligence’s EV Battery Capacity and Battery Metals Tracker. After losing the top spot to LG Chem in January… Read more »
Recently, Tesla has indicated that it plans to diversify its battery supply for the Asian market, moving away from its near-total reliance on Panasonic. Now Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), China’s largest EV battery-maker, has confirmed the signing of a two-year supplier agreement with Tesla. The agreement does not specify the volume of cells to be… Read more »
General Motors and LG Chem have announced plans to establish a battery cell assembly plant on a greenfield site in the Lordstown area of Northeast Ohio. The companies will invest up to $2.3 billion in the facility through a new joint venture. The new factory will eventually provide batteries for GM’s electric pickup truck, expected… Read more »
One of China’s top producers of lithium has agreed to supply a fifth of its lithium hydroxide production to Tesla’s battery suppliers. The agreement with Jiangxi-based Ganfeng Lithium runs from 2018 to 2020, and could be extended by three years. EV-makers have been scrambling to secure supplies of lithium for the past couple of years…. Read more »