Tesla and Panasonic break up Solar Cell Partnership

SMM: it is reported that Panasonic will end its cooperation with Tesla in solar cells. "both companies agree that solar cell production is no longer likely to increase and that there is no need to continue joint production," the source said. "

The move is aimed at cutting costs, the report said. Panasonic is shutting down production lines with low capacity utilization to save costs.

Panasonic and Tesla announced the solar cell joint venture in 2016. The plant began producing core components of solar panels in 2017, and Panasonic's solar cells are also used in Tesla's solar panels.

Tesla products, known as "solar roofs", look similar to ordinary black roof tiles. However, Panasonic batteries still fail to achieve this appearance while maintaining this efficiency and cost. Tesla's latest version of the Solar Roof last year uses Chinese batteries, while Panasonic's batteries are sold to Japanese homebuilders and other customers.

Panasonic hopes to cut costs by shutting down underutilized production lines, and Tesla has also announced partnerships with Chinese battery makers CATL and South Korea's LG Chem.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to the partnership on solar cells, Panasonic and Tesla's partnership on electric car batteries also seems to be at a crossroads. Kazuhiro Tsuga, Panasonic chief executive, said that although Tesla had opened a new plant in Shanghai, there were "no immediate plans" to set up a car battery plant in China.

Earlier market news said Tesla was in contact with the Ningde era to use Ningde-era cobalt-free batteries in Chinese-made Tesla cars.

If the deal is reached, it will be the first time Tesla has used lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries in its products, and the most important reason Tesla has set its sights on LFP batteries is to reduce costs.

At present, new energy vehicle batteries are mainly divided into lithium iron phosphate battery and ternary lithium battery.

The former refers to lithium ion battery with lithium iron phosphate as cathode material. This kind of battery does not contain precious metals such as cobalt, which has the advantages of low manufacturing cost and low price.

Ternary lithium battery is a lithium battery which uses lithium nickel cobalt manganate as cathode material and graphite as negative electrode material. This kind of battery voltage platform is very high, in the same volume or weight, the ternary lithium battery energy, power is greater. Because of the use of cobalt, the cost is also higher.

Although the current price of cobalt is well below its all-time high, prices of more than $30,000 a tonne still make the metal the most expensive ingredient in ternary lithium batteries.

Panasonic has been a supplier of Tesla nickel cobalt aluminum NCA ternary lithium batteries and has a monopoly in this field.

Tesla chose the Ningde era and stressed that "cobalt-free batteries" largely wanted to get rid of its dependence on Panasonic, market analysts said.

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