Understanding The Size Of Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s Production Of Battery Packs

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By Mark Michaels on September 1, 2014 Company

It is no secret that Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is planning to build a production plant to manufacture the lithium ion battery packs used in its cars. However, most people are unaware of the size of the ambitious factory that Tesla is seeking to build, and many are unable to grasp even just the sales of the company’s current battery requirements.

For example, Nissan (OTCPK:NSANY)’s 100 percent electric vehicle, the Leaf, is currently the car with the largest number of sales in the electric vehicle market. Right now, Nissan is on the right path to hit about 54,000 units of Leafs in global sales by the end of this year. 54,000 units of Leaf vehicles call for about 1300MWh worth of batteries, which is the equivalent of 1.3 GWh of batteries.

Tesla, on the other hand, is on track to sell only 35,000 units of Model S vehicles this year. That quantity of electric vehicles calls for about 2.9GWh of lithium ion batteries, which is more than double the quantity require by the Nissan Leaf.

Additionally, Tesla is increasing its battery requirements much more quickly than any other competitor in the space, including Nissan. Tesla has also been concentrating its efforts to expand its production of electric vehicles at a faster rate and with larger batteries than its rivals and peers in the industry.

Prior to the completion of the Gigafactory, the main supplier of the battery packs used in Tesla vehicles was Panasonic (OTCPK:PCRFY). Panasonic was unable to keep up with the rapid expansion and scale of Tesla, and that was the main reason the electric car maker embarked on its ambitious plan to build to the factory. This single factory is supposed to be able to produce more than all the battery factories in the entire world by 2020. Based on experts from analysts, Tesla’s growth from today until they reach their goal of 500,000 vehicles in 2020, their production for battery pack will increase exponentially.

If Tesla is able to hit their goal of 50GWh of battery packs from the manufacturing plant, even the number of extra battery packs produced by the Gigafactory that will not be used for automobiles, will be 6 times the number of battery packs produced by Nissan in 2014. That figure is equivalent to 310,000 units of Nissan Leafs.

Next we must take into account the global energy storage market. The scale of the market for global utility battery storage is said to be approximately $221 million. With a price tag of $500 a kilowatt, that is equal to 442MWh. That means that the extra product that the Gigafactory is making for storage is more than 16 times the current market for utility scale global battery storage. Currently, the scale of the market is relatively small, due to the fact that the cost of batteries is very expensive and a large cost for utility scale storage. However, if the prices were to hit $100 a kWh, they would be considered a competitor with all other types of storage.

There is no other producer of batteries, whether it is storage or automotive, even has a plan to manufacture batteries at that kind of scale. Perhaps the other companies are waiting to see if Tesla succeeds or fails in this sort of operation before they invest their own money into this sort of ambitious type of expansion. In this case, we as consumers may begin to see bigger battery factories by the year 2025.

Tesla’s battery facility produces the same batteries that are used by SolarCity (NASDAQ:SCTY) when installing solar panels for commercial and residential customers.

As for the competition from automotive companies, it is a commonly held belief that a major auto maker will release an electric vehicle that can run up to 200 miles on one charge in the next 2 or 3 years. According to industry experts and analysts, General Motors (NYSE:GM) may be that company, and it may utilize an LG battery.

However, it is unlikely that GM will be that company, for several reasons.

First, the sales of the Chevrolet Volt are declining, and thus GM will likely release second generation Volt in th year 2016. Releasing a competitor to the Volt in the same time period, therefore seems unlikely.

Second, GM already manufactures a compliance electric vehicle – the Chevrolet Spark electric vehicle. By 2016, GM could make the Spark available all across the nation. The 200 mile electric vehicle, which would be more affordable, would essentially destroy the sales of the Spark electric vehicle.

What about the rest of the auto industry? The other companies in this space are trailing so far behind, even in the case of the scale of the battery production project, that they will unlikely make a successful electric vehicle that is a serious threat to Tesla and its Gen III. If that is the case, however, then the other companies will be lagging behind Tesla by at least 5 years by the time they are ready to compete.

Tesla’s Roadster was released in 2008 with a mile range of over 200 miles. This milestone has not yet been reached by any other major auto manufacturer. Therefore, it would be a poor decision to rely on any of these other companies to roll out a competitor to Tesla’s Gen III.

The other problem that analysts and experts in the industry have brought up with Tesla is the chances of the company reaching their price reduction goal in the price of the battery. However, the scale of Tesla’s battery production center will certainly help the company get those costs down.

First, the cell and the pack production are done in the same facility, so that cuts out any costs for shipping.

The sheer number of the raw materials that Telsa plans to attain directly from suppliers, instead of the open market, will contribute to cutting the company’s costs. Tesla will also focus on using local materials.

The company also plans to optimize the size of the cells. The improvement of technology involving energy density will also help – the current Model S is 100 pounds lighter than the previous version. Less materials means smaller costs.

The Gigafactory will also use renewable energy sources and self manufactured storage for energy that is on site. These measures will also cut down on energy costs.

Criticism of Tesla

Some people have also complained about the fact that Tesla is often late to meet is goals. However, those critics fail to realize that many other auto makers are guilty of this as well. The Nissan Leaf was late, the BMW i3 was late, the Chevrolet Volt was late, and the Ford Focus Electric was late as well.

It is important to keep in mind that Tesla is a brand new car company, and their first car, the Model S, is their first 100 percent electric vehicles for households. This is an impressive achievement for a new car company.