Tesla rocked the automotive world last month with news that it plans to build a 5 GW lithium ion battery plant in the United States. That’s huge: 5 GW is equivalent to all of the world’s current battery production, so, Tesla will basically double global battery manufacturing.
This alone is not staggering; companies and industries scale rapidly all the time. What makes Tesla’s announcement so important is that it comes just a few years after battery companies such as A123 and Valence Technology filed for bankruptcy; big corporates such as Bosch and Dow Chemical left the industry, and electric car manufacturers Fisker and Bright Automotive closed their doors.
Electric-car manufacturer Tesla might be dreaming up an alternative world in which we all drive electric cars, but its next model will be very much based on the world we’re currently living in.
Tesla’s next car model, called the Tesla Model III, is directly aimed at taking on the new electric BMW 3 Series, the company confirmed today to trade publication AutoExpress. This new car will be smaller, likely by 20 percent, than its sedan model, the Model S.
In a June 12th blog post that made instant waves, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla Motors, declared: “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.” The words stood in stark contrast to most of the other recent news about patents – the headlines of wars being fought in the courts by, for example, Apple, Samsung, and Google Android.
Should a car be treated like a piece of software? That is essentially what Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, has done. The billionaire, who made his fortune by co-founding and selling PayPal, recently dropped a bombshell on the automotive industry: In the spirit of the “open source” movement, he announced this month that Tesla would share patents that cover its revolutionary electric vehicles for free.
Yesterday, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the electric car company, announced that Tesla would make its patents freely available to competitors. To many people this announcement seemed surprising if not shocking. After all, the conventional wisdom holds that patents are essential to keep competitors from imitating innovations, especially for small startup companies. If rivals imitate, they will drive down prices, wiping out the potential profits on innovation, thus making it difficult or impossible to earn a return on R&D investments.
Elon Musk is placing an enormous bet on the world’s largest lithium-ion battery plant—a $5 billion, 10 million-square-foot (930,000 sq m) “gigafactory” that would make enough battery packs to power 500,000 electric cars a year. That is four times the number of electric cars of any brand bought around the world last year, and a whopping 21 times Tesla’s own 2013 sales. In addition to betting on this monumental sales boost, Musk is hoping an inventive rival won’t eclipse his battery technology and render the gigafactory instantly obsolete.
Tesla Motors said it will start building a massive battery factory next month. A month or two later, it will start building a second factory in parallel. With construction started at two locations, the company reasons, it will be more likely that one will be ready in time to meet increasing demand for its electric cars.
Tesla Motors said it will start building a massive battery factory next month. A month or two later, it will start building a second factory in parallel. With construction started at two locations, the company reasons, it will be more likely that one will be ready in time to meet increasing demand for its electric cars.
Lithium-ion batteries are just about everywhere—they power almost all smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Yet Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, says he intends to build a factory in the United States three years from now that will more than double the world’s total lithium-ion battery production. The plan is still in its early stages, but already four states are negotiating with Tesla in the hope of becoming the factory’s home.
People have come to expect bold plans from Musk. In addition to founding Tesla, he started his own rocket company, SpaceX, which now delivers supplies to the International Space Station. But even for him, the “gigafactory,” as he calls it, seems audacious.
