Nissan "built the gigafactory" a decade ago and it didn't work out for them at all.
In 2007, Nissan and NEC entered into a joint venture just like Tesla/Panasonic's: they created AESC, Automotive Energy Supply Corporation, and built a $1.1 billion lithium ion battery factory near one of Nissan's manufacturing plants. Nissan committed to buying the plant's output for some years. These became the batteries and battery packs for the Nissan Leaf, of which they've sold more than 200,000 to date.
However, AESC eventually lagged at least a generation behind Panasonic (and now several others) in chemistry, process and price, which significantly worsened Nissan's position in the market. It took them some years to get out of that arrangement (relatively recently) so that they can buy batteries for the next-generation Leaf and other Nissan-Renault vehicles at less than 1/2 the price from other suppliers.
There's no guarantee that 10 years from now, we'll look back and say the Gigafactory was a wise investment for Tesla. They feared insufficient supply or being locked out of adequate supply for batteries, but now that everyone's seen the writing on the wall that EVs could become a big chunk of the new car market in the 2020s, it seems far less likely that battery supply will be a short-term issue.
Boston Power, BYD, Foxconn, SK Innovation, Samsung SDI, LG Chem, etc have built, broken ground or committed funds for over 150 GWh of annual vehicle battery production over the next 3-5 years. Tesla will not be the only major player in that market, and Panasonic is free to supply batteries to other car makers than Tesla from their other factories.
Nissan "built the gigafactory" a decade ago and it didn't work out for them at all.
In 2007, Nissan and NEC entered into a joint venture just like Tesla/Panasonic's: they created AESC, Automotive Energy Supply Corporation, and built a $1.1 billion lithium ion battery factory near one of Nissan's manufacturing plants. Nissan committed to buying the plant's output for some years. These became the batteries and battery packs for the Nissan Leaf, of which they've sold more than 200,000 to date.
However, AESC eventually lagged at least a generation behind Panasonic (and now several others) in chemistry, process and price, which significantly worsened Nissan's position in the market. It took them some years to get out of that arrangement (relatively recently) so that they can buy batteries for the next-generation Leaf and other Nissan-Renault vehicles at less than 1/2 the price from other suppliers.
There's no guarantee that 10 years from now, we'll look back and say the Gigafactory was a wise investment for Tesla. They feared insufficient supply or being locked out of adequate supply for batteries, but now that everyone's seen the writing on the wall that EVs could become a big chunk of the new car market in the 2020s, it seems far less likely that battery supply will be a short-term issue.
Boston Power, BYD, Foxconn, SK Innovation, Samsung SDI, LG Chem, etc have built, broken ground or committed funds for over 150 GWh of annual vehicle battery production over the next 3-5 years. Tesla will not be the only major player in that market, and Panasonic is free to supply batteries to other car makers than Tesla from their other factories.