Electric Car Growth Produces Battery Shortages, Carmakers Can’t Match Production with Demand

Conventional car companies are in a quandary, where the only sources for batteries to compete with Tesla are companies like LG Chem, SK Innovation, CATL, and Samsung SDI, which are just beginning advanced NMC 811 production over the next year.

It seems that only Tesla figured EVs would be successful this early and planned ahead to build a gigafactory to supply the vast amount of cells necessary to build the large numbers of electric cars consumers want.  Even Tesla has to expand its battery factory size and efficiency by 3× to fulfill demand for both storage and EV batteries.  The original plan was for 35 GWh for cars and 50 GWh total.  The updated plan is for about 100 GWh for cars and 150 GWh total.

Tesla’s current rate of production of 75 kWh packs for the Model 3 is equivalent to 23–24 GWh annually.  This production level is expected to rise as Gigafactory 1 is completed.

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