Tesla Foul-Up Causes Global Shortage of Cylindrical Batteries

[DooKey]

Tesla's giant Gigafactory is having big trouble ramping up battery production and they are having to buy batteries from Panasonic to put in their cars. As a result of their ineptitude this is causing a global shortage because Tesla sucked up all of the materials to make them from around the globe, but they aren't producing batteries. They better figure out their power issues and somehow overcome the fact that people don't want to work way out in the middle of the desert. Overall this is just one more Tesla foul-up.

According to industries, Gigafactory has not had normal operation for many months due to unstable supply of power and extreme shortage of manpower. Since a battery (100kWh) used for single Tesla ‘Model S’ can be used to produce 200 electric bicycles, previous customers are taking significant blows.

 

[WorldExclusive]

Well, soon they will understand that part manufacturing has to be outsourced. All the big car companies understand you can't do it all by yourself.
The moment they loosen their grip on in-house production, quality will increase and production times will decrease.

Tesla has to decide if they want to be a battery/power company or transportation company. They can only be efficient at one.

 

[Elios]

huh wind and solar power are unstable who knew /s

if only we had a source of power that was reliable and zero emission ... oh wait nuclear is

 

[admiralperpetual]

can someone explain their power problems? read the article but it wasn't too detailed...

 

[thejokker]

can someone explain their power problems? read the article but it wasn't too detailed...

A shortage of raw materials is causing a global shortage of batteries. Just a continuation of the Electric Car Folly...

 

[TheBuzzer]

Time to use a new source of material for batteries!

 

[SixFootDuo]

Well, soon they will understand that part manufacturing has to be outsourced. All the big car companies understand you can't do it all by yourself.
The moment they loosen their grip on in-house production, quality will increase and production times will decrease.

Tesla has to decide if they want to be a battery/power company or transportation company. They can only be efficient at one.

This company has the worlds first reusable rocket that can ... and let me remind you, go into space, return and then .... LAND.

You really ... ( seriously? ) ... really think this company cannot figure out a battery factory and car factory.

You do know that Elon Musk owns SpaceX right? And Tesla?

Using your logic, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford should have only been good at one thing and not anything else.

I'll spare you Apple, Google, Facebook and a gazillion other companies who do many many things all in the same breath.

 

[0neTwo]

Soo Tesla bought a lot of raw battery materials....from a battery supplier that was happy to sell to them as much as they wanted.

 

[sfsuphysics]

can someone explain their power problems? read the article but it wasn't too detailed...

It wasn't well stated, but my guess is that you throw up a huge factory in the middle of nowhere that uses a lot of power then you might put a crimp on the electrical grid, and companies typically will pay lower electrical rates in exchange for being the first to be cut off should there be a shortage of power.

 

[Sikkyu]

huh wind and solar power are unstable who knew /s

if only we had a source of power that was reliable and zero emission ... oh wait nuclear is

I really like Nuclear went done right, like its fucking amazing when it works.

Shit goes side wise because humans are lazy greedy bastards and that one fuckup with shit on everyone for hundreds of years.

 

[cageymaru]

Seems like everyone across the world needs to learn to recycle their electrical devices. There shouldn't be a materials problem if we put our old devices in the proper recycling bin.

 

[Glyphic]

Yeah I don't come to the [H] for this blatant ignorant bias. What is this, CNN?

 

[Jim Kim]

I already live in the desert. I'll work for them.

 

[nightanole]

A shortage of raw materials is causing a global shortage of batteries. Just a continuation of the Electric Car Folly...

Not quite. Tesla bought up "a large portion" of the raw materials for batteries, cant produce batteries with those raw materials, so they are buying up all the rest of the worlds batteries.

It would be like chipolte buying all of Australia's cows, cant figure out how to ship them to the usa, so they also buy all of usa's cows. Now no one other than chipolte has cows in aust and usa, and we are down 50% in beef production.

 

[nightanole]

Seems like everyone across the world needs to learn to recycle their electrical devices. There shouldn't be a materials problem if we put our old devices in the proper recycling bin.

Lion batteries are not recyclable...

At best you can reclaim the can if you really really try. Its not like lead acid etc where you can make a new battery out of most of the reclaimed battery. Hell even nicads and nickel-metal can be recycled into new batteries.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

This company has the worlds first reusable rocket that can ... and let me remind you, go into space, return and then .... LAND.

You really ... ( seriously? ) ... really think this company cannot figure out a battery factory and car factory.

You do know that Elon Musk owns SpaceX right? And Tesla?

Using your logic, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford should have only been good at one thing and not anything else.

I'll spare you Apple, Google, Facebook and a gazillion other companies who do many many things all in the same breath.

Simply because you think Musk is a "Schmart Goy", and hires great people doesn't mean they can necessarily overcome logistics-induced issues.

Not saying they're stupid.

But even small mis-steps here cause massive run-on effects elsewhere AND downstream.

 

[thejokker]

Not quite. Tesla bought up "a large portion" of the raw materials for batteries, cant produce batteries with those raw materials, so they are buying up all the rest of the worlds batteries.

It would be like chipolte buying all of Australia's cows, cant figure out how to ship them to the usa, so they also buy all of usa's cows. Now no one other than chipolte has cows in aust and usa, and we are down 50% in beef production.

There "is" a shortage of raw materials and there now "is" a shortage of batteries as a direct consequence. Battery prices will rise as will the cost of electric cars...

 

[Deleted member 126051]

I really like Nuclear went done right, like its fucking amazing when it works.

Shit goes side wise because humans are lazy greedy bastards and that one fuckup with shit on everyone for hundreds of years.

This is why we need to be looking at cleaner, more stable nuclear technologies.

Unfortunately, simply UTTERING the word "nuclear" is enough to turn almost everyone into a screaming pod person nowadays.

 

[Draax]

The hate for Tesla and Musk is hilarious. It is so edgy, I wouldn't want people to trip over their trench coats.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I have been in manufacturing my entire career across many different companies. New manufacturing lines ALWAYS have problems initially. It's just a fact of life.

Tesla's fault is that they aren't that good at predicting the problems they are going to have with a new operation yet. You need to account for those problems and build in the slack time.

 

[0neTwo]

The factory is connected to the grid and can power itself like normal.

And a "shortage of manpower due to accessibility in the to the factory"? WTF, its 15 minutes from Reno. You dont have to take a camel...

 

[BloodyIron]

The factory is actually powered by solar and battery systems they built themselves, and it's at the scale that grid source is only a backup. So, you're out of date with your info there...

It wasn't well stated, but my guess is that you throw up a huge factory in the middle of nowhere that uses a lot of power then you might put a crimp on the electrical grid, and companies typically will pay lower electrical rates in exchange for being the first to be cut off should there be a shortage of power.

 

[BloodyIron]

Nuclear isn't actually "clean", in that the spent fuel is where it gets dirty. All spent power grade uranium has a half life so long, we can't even plan for when it will be safe to handle. Not only that, the majority of the energy in the spent uranium (90%), will never be used in nuclear reactors.

During operations, sure it is clean. But ignoring the spent fuel facet is short sighted, and literally ignorant.

I know nuclear can be better, but right now, it isn't.

This is why we need to be looking at cleaner, more stable nuclear technologies.

Unfortunately, simply UTTERING the word "nuclear" is enough to turn almost everyone into a screaming pod person nowadays.

 

[John Ransom]

I think musk needs to go hire some former ford guys so he can figure out mass production, being serious here. He seems to be really good a boutique stuff, but mass production seems to be giving him an issue.

 

[Zamboni]

Maybe they should stop firing employees if they're having manpower shortages.

For a manufacturing company, manufacturing doesn't seem to be one of their top priorities.

 

[BSmith]

Meh, teething problems.

 

[aduljr]

1. Panasonic is responsible for the manufacturing of the batteries at the gigafactory. Specifically the battery cells.
2. Panasonic has shipped and continues to ship batteries for the model S and X from japan.
3. Suffice to say if panasonic is having issues at the gigafactory, they would fill in the gap from product over in japan.

 

[Gasaraki_]

Wow, wtf is this headline commentary.

"As a result of their ineptitude this is causing a global shortage because Tesla sucked up all of the materials to make them from around the globe, but they aren't producing batteries. They better figure out their power issues and somehow overcome the fact that people don't want to work way out in the middle of the desert. Overall this is just one more Tesla foul-up."

Thank you for your deep analysis Montu.

 

[Joust]

Meh, teething problems.

The company has an enjoyed an exceptionally patient investor base for such problems. I like the things the company is doing for...the future, I guess... but I am curious how far that patience will last.

 

[Sharps97]

What a terrible “article”. Didn’t expect to see trolling as an official article on this site...

 

[doz]

Tesla and Panasonic have a deal in place for Panasonic to produce batteries. This is all part of the master plan. Journalism at its finest producing bullshit stories. Panasonic even has a plant on Gigafactory grounds and they are building another.

A plant in the middle of the desert? The plant is 21 miles from the center of Reno. How is that out in the middle of the desert? I am sure there are plenty of people who would love a 21 mile commute that is all highway.

Piss poor clickbait bullshit. This is [ S ]oft News

 

[EODetroit]

This article is 90% fabrication, and the other 10% was made up based on what someone remembered reading once on reddit.

The production difficulties Tesla has are with taking cells and making them into battery packs. Not with making cells. The cell production is fine. The only batteries they bought from the open market, that don't use Tesla's special formulation by the way, are the ones they used for the Australian power system. Not the ones being made at the Gigafactory like the article says. The global supply of batteries obviously isn't affected by the Gigafactory. Seeing how the Gigafactory isn't anywhere near full production, it isn't a drain on global supplies of cobalt, lithium, or anything else (yet), either.

There are other electric power (not automotive) battery projects underway that will exceed what Tesla did in < 100 days in Australia by 50% and more. So if that was such a shock to the global battery supply, we haven't seen anything yet. But I don't think there's much truth to even this part of the story either. This is just English-language Korean clickbait. And nearly-complete bullshit.

 

[DejaWiz]

The company has an enjoyed an exceptionally patient investor base for such problems. I like the things the company is doing for...the future, I guess... but I am curious how far that patience will last.

Yep...consumers can be a fickle bitch. I'm still amazed that Musk was able to fend off the frenzied deposit payers when Tesla was first starting out and had delay after delay after delay, then was met with the whole dealership pushback since they sold factory direct, only to somehow keep things afloat and then move the business in the right direction. Oh, and all the taxpayer funded subsidies he's happily taken to assist his businesses.

 

[Jagger100]

Well, soon they will understand that part manufacturing has to be outsourced. All the big car companies understand you can't do it all by yourself.
The moment they loosen their grip on in-house production, quality will increase and production times will decrease.

Tesla has to decide if they want to be a battery/power company or transportation company. They can only be efficient at one.

Nothing to do with outsourcing. Everything to do with large scale effort. If they outsourced to a single entity they would be in the same boat. Now if they cultivated multiple source including internal and a few external, they'd probably be ok.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

Nuclear isn't actually "clean", in that the spent fuel is where it gets dirty. All spent power grade uranium has a half life so long, we can't even plan for when it will be safe to handle. Not only that, the majority of the energy in the spent uranium (90%), will never be used in nuclear reactors.

During operations, sure it is clean. But ignoring the spent fuel facet is short sighted, and literally ignorant.

I know nuclear can be better, but right now, it isn't.

Actually the worst of it is the non-fuel waste. But that's a tiny percentage of the total production.
The spent fuel rods themselves are only mildly VERY radioactive. This is why they'll be radioactive for thousands of years.
You could, once it's thermally cooled off, hold a spent rod in your gloved hand with no ill effect.
The reason they're sealed in casks is actual CHEMICAL contamination.

There ARE other technologies out there (Liquid Fuel Thorium) that work on a different nuclear cycle. And most of the fuel waste they produce is REALLY radioactive, but VERY short-lived.

Also, by design, the reactor has a default state of "off". If you somehow get an uncontrolled reaction, lose power, whatever, the supercooled plug to the reactor vessel melts and boom. The fuel drains into a dump tank and away from the reaction mass. Fission stops.

And unlike solid fuel reactors, you keep "cooking" the fuel and leeching off the byproducts.

Also, when it comes time to decommission a reactor vessel, you disconnect it and pull the entire vessel out of a concrete pit. You could, conceivably, drop a new reactor vessel into place, hook it up and continue pumping out power.

 

[Jagger100]

The company has an enjoyed an exceptionally patient investor base for such problems. I like the things the company is doing for...the future, I guess... but I am curious how far that patience will last.

They've been probably hoping someone big buys them for their name and technology. Probably a Chinese entity.

 

[Joust]

They've been probably hoping someone big buys them for their name and technology. Probably a Chinese entity.

You might be right, but if that's the case they certainly over-capitalized. $52B+ market cap (I think that's what Tesla is valued at these days) makes for one gigantic acquisition. Maybe a state-sponsored acquisition.

 

[Term-X]

Man, the bias and hatred... just oozing in this post.

 

[Twisted Kidney]

Just another reason Jesus loves coal.

 

[jnemesh]

Tesla's giant Gigafactory is having big trouble ramping up battery production and they are having to buy batteries from Panasonic to put in their cars. As a result of their ineptitude this is causing a global shortage because Tesla sucked up all of the materials to make them from around the globe, but they aren't producing batteries. They better figure out their power issues and somehow overcome the fact that people don't want to work way out in the middle of the desert. Overall this is just one more Tesla foul-up.

According to industries, Gigafactory has not had normal operation for many months due to unstable supply of power and extreme shortage of manpower. Since a battery (100kWh) used for single Tesla ‘Model S’ can be used to produce 200 electric bicycles, previous customers are taking significant blows.

Could your reporting be any more negatively biased? Seriously. Back off.