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A comment on Everyone Despises SolarCity Deal, Except Tesla Shareholders. Parent comment

Re:Everyone Despises SolarCity Deal, Except Tesla Shareholders by dragontamer on Thursday August 04, 2016 @04:15PM (#12228136)
The largest Li-ion cell manufacturer remains Panasonic, the other owner of the Gigafactory.

The "Batteries" that Tesla builds are just a bunch of Panasonic cells wired together plus some smarts to distribute the load. I don't see Panasonic remaining Tesla-exclusive for an extended period of time.

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Re:Everyone Despises SolarCity Deal, Except Tesla Shareholders by erikpukinskis on Friday August 05, 2016 @03:22AM (#12230595)
The Tesla IP is just as important as the Panasonic IP though. It really is a joint venture. And Tesla, as the customer connection, has more leverage than Panasonic. They could cut Panasonic out of the next Gigafactory, but Panasonic can't start selling cars and home energy systems.
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Re:Everyone Despises SolarCity Deal, Except Tesla Shareholders by dragontamer on Friday August 05, 2016 @04:25PM (#12235507)
Panasonic owns half the Gigafactory.

Tesla doesn't have any leverage here. Panasonic does what it wants. Tesla can decide to switch to another supplier, but Panasonic can just start selling to GM or Ford.

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Re:Everyone Despises SolarCity Deal, Except Tesla Shareholders by erikpukinskis on Monday August 08, 2016 @04:05AM (#12246154)
Of course, for Gigafactory 1 Tesla and Panasonic are married.

I was talking about Gigafactory 2.

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