Tesla Planning for a Terawatt Hour of Batteries Each Year

On the recent quarterly conference call, Elon Musk indicated that Tesla will have clear roadmap to a Terawatt hour per year of battery production. If all of the Terawatt hour per year of batteries were used for electric cars (average of 70 KWh of batteries per car) then this would be 14.2 million electric cars per year. Tesla will produce semi-trucks and battery storage. A Terawatt hour of batteries per year would be about ten million electric cars each year, a large number of semi-trucks and batteries for stationary storage systems.

In April, Tesla revealed that battery production was at 23 GWh per year. Full production of the first phase of the Gigafactory was to have 35 GWh per year. When Tesla and Panasonic first announced plans for Gigafactory 1, they planned to increase production capacity at the Nevada Gigafactory up to 105 GWh of battery cell production and 150 GWh of battery pack production.

A Terawatt Hour per year of batteries would mean 40 times current Tesla battery production and about 10 Gigafactories focused on batteries. However, fully converting to Maxwell dry batteries would increase production at the current factory.

Tesla now owns Maxwell’s Technology’s dry battery technology. This technology could double battery energy density for improved car range. The technology was claimed to increase factory production by 16 times. This would mean that three Gigafactories could produce a Terawatt hour of batteries per year.

In February or March, 2010, Tesla should have a Battery Day. They will talk about cell chemistry, module and pack architecture, and the manufacturing roadmap to a TWh per year. Tesla ‘Battery Day’ will be the third part of its Master Plan.

11 thoughts on “Tesla Planning for a Terawatt Hour of Batteries Each Year”

  1. Their production rate would improve if they weren’t damaging so many cells during production. Apparently the manufacturing line is STILL sloppy and they are throwing out tons of cells. Less cells means less battery packs too.

  2. Groovy! Considering the market share of GM is tanking long term and Tesla is expanding while market valuation is fluctuating, looks like a great time to buy and hold Tesla long term to me. They’re expanding into multiple countries (including the worlds largest car market, China) with auto’s and battery gigafactories even before Maxwell’s technologies hit, I’ll take it!

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/239607/vehicle-sales-market-share-of-general-motors-in-the-united-states/

  3. There’s no conspiracy. GM has per year revenue 3x their market cap. Tesla has revenue per year 0.6x their market cap.

    I own a Tesla; I don’t own Tesla stock.

  4. It’s funny watching the stock price for Tesla going down because of one quarterly report when Tesla is in fact still in expansion mode to dominate the battery and electric car market. I have the feeling that the stock is being played downward deliberately in the media so more shares can be snapped up by the people who control the media. This is my own personal conspiracy theory but makes sense if you follow the $$.

  5. Add in the roughly doubling of energy density the Maxwell process is supposed to eventually yield, and you’re almost there.

  6. Good point. OTOH, the planned capacity for cell production at the GF was over 100G so at 4:1 would only take 2.5 GFs to get to Tera if the footprint stays as planned.

  7. There’s more to a factory than just the battery cathode making equipment. So even if that is 80 % of the factory, you’re more like 4x the output by reducing that 80% by 16x.

  8. Woops Quote “In February or March, 2010, Tesla should have a Battery Day. ”

    I think they are running a little late! 🙂

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