Tesla is riding high and Elon Musk has proved right in almost all respects, with his company valued up with the top three auto companies despite Tesla's output being a tiny percentage of theirs. One of the reasons is his record orderbook for pure electric vehicles recognised to be the future.
Much less is heard about Nissan + Renault, the partnership that has quietly climbed over GM into the top three by output and boasts the largest number of pure electric cars delivered. Few would notice its flagship Leaf or Zoe going past. Now it is shedding its large battery production just as Musk talks of building many more gigafactories. Failure right?
Well, not necessarily. Though the lithium-ion battery has been around for decades, it shows none of the characteristics of a mature technology: indeed it just got more immature with most leading suppliers intending to change everything, in some cases several times over the coming decade - anode, cathode, electrolyte, format - in order to eliminate flammability, increase energy density and so on.
Manufacturing theory says radically change product design or output but not both at the same time. Tesla is acquiring great risk. Strategy theory says vertically integrate only with mature product. Tesla is flying in the face of this too. If, at some stage, his partner Panasonic does not keep up with the times in battery technology, he will have the stranded assets not Nissan + Renault. Time will tell.
Learn more at IDTechEx Show! Santa Clara California 15-16 November with conferences on energy storage, electric vehicle technology, energy harvesting reducing need for batteries and more and a 200 stand exhibition. IDTechEx has reports on the leading battery types, supercapacitors and, Battery Elimination in Electronics and Electrical Engineering. Yes. Engineers do workrounds!
Top image: Wikipedia
