NEWS: Tesla negotiating with EVE for low cost LFP batteries

[Steve_S]

May 14, 20216:47 AM EDT

EXCLUSIVE Tesla in talks with China’s EVE for low-cost battery supply deal -sources​

Reuters
SOURCE: https://www.reuters.com/business/au...-cost-battery-supply-deal-sources-2021-05-14/

PART of Article, See Source Link for Full Article:

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is in talks with Chinese battery maker EVE Energy Co (300014.SZ) to add the firm to its Shanghai factory supply chain, four people familiar with the matter said, as it seeks to boost procurement of lower cost batteries.

EVE makes lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, which are cheaper to produce because they use iron instead of more expensive nickel and cobalt.

But LFP batteries generally offer a shorter range on a single charge than the more popular nickel/cobalt alternative.

EVE would become the second supplier of LFP batteries to Tesla after China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (300750.SZ) (CATL).

 

[jwelter99]

Tesla is getting destroyed in China and needs to get costs under control. This might be a way forward.

Tesla may be much worse off in China than anyone thought — CNN Business

Tesla's Chinese sales last month were much weaker than they originally appeared.

apple.news

 

[dr.diesel]

Probably means less availability for us.

 

[Steve_S]

Ohh Lordie...
LFP is headed to MegaPacks, PowerWalls as well as vehicles. This frees up NMC 28650, 2170 & new 4680 cells for EV's. They DO have a cell crunch for production and this is a partial solution. Tesla is even Sub-Contracting 46980 Cell Manufacture out as well to get ahead.

There are at present no new announcements for LFP Manufacture in North America or EU. THAT in itself should cause people to ask questions & wonder why ?

CNN article biased & phooey. Like a few others they do not understand the NO DEALER accounting systems.

 

[sunshine]

It is either LFP or manual door handles!

 

[Substrate]

So ironic. Surely Musk must have known about the tragic history of A123 where none of this would have been a problem had it been handled correctly.

Simply put, the LFP tech was awesome way back in the day, but competetive corporate hijinks, jealousy over DOE funding and others, news-media hungry for lithium-scare sound-bytes, and yes, an improper battery module infrastucture and cooling incident, killed it off, and we handed the industry over in a knee-jerk reaction. Some might even say it was orchestrated, but I have no evidence of that.

Thing is, the actual CELL TECHNOLOGY by itself is awesome and proven. It's just that things like the surrounding infrastructure, not the cells, that failed, but the damage was done. Lithium is the devil! (as none of us here would say)

Nevermind that the public and even investors don't have the slightest clue about the difference between LFP and the other lithium chemistries are, and never bothered to look into the issues, to see what the REAL problem was and issue retractions of stories.

Basically we got what we asked for, and are not leaders in the LFP market. It was given away.

 

[Substrate]

Well, my post wasn't meant to be political, just business as usual, so I wouldn't weave that much into it.

Thing is, take a look at the voluminous thread about Valence batteries here and the love it generates amongst owners. You can trace that back to A123 engineers. Like your Lithium-Werks? Look to 123 originally.

A123 Systems - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What made this tech exciting was the ability to "nano" the iron phosphate into very fine powder instead of using cobalt. This nano-izing made existing LFP which for the most part was simply power-dense, into something hugely energy-dense so that you can hammer EV applications. Or power drills. Or perhaps space ships safely.

Although not a major factor, the DIY'ers didn't help things by courting the counterfeit and reject-cell black market. It was frustrating not being able to get them in quantity except by buying power drill batteries and extracting them. So unless you did that, you made yourself a target to scammers and waste-stream diverters.

I feel sorry for all the engineers who might have been let down by that whole escapade. In fact, one of them helped many of us online identify counterfeits, such as obviously cut off zipper-seals on the pouches, how to get the most from a genuine A123 cell with no question asked about how we got them. Safety was his overriding concern what with all the counterfeits out there.