Tesla 'calls' battery supplier expansion

After delivering 500,000 vehicles in 2020, Tesla will be more hungry for high-quality battery production in 2021. A few days ago, Tesla CEO Musk said on social media that he hopes suppliers can make more batteries. 'It's important to emphasize this to our suppliers. We don't want them to go bankrupt. We want them to increase production.' Musk also said that achieving Tesla's goal of selling 20 million electric vehicles per year is of great significance. 'We are trying to increase car production as quickly as possible, but the important limiting factor is battery production.' Musk asked his battery suppliers to increase production, indicating that Tesla is about to release a larger-scale battery purchase demand. The demand for power lithium batteries in the annual sales of 20 million electric vehicles will exceed 1,000GWh, which will provide its battery suppliers with considerable room for development. At the same time, they will also put great pressure and challenges on battery companies in terms of production expansion and delivery. Market data shows that Tesla will produce 509,739 electric vehicles and deliver 499,647 electric vehicles in the global market in 2020, an increase of 36% year-on-year. Calculated on the basis of an electric vehicle's installed capacity of 55KWh, Tesla will achieve a power lithium battery installed capacity of close to 30GWh in 2020, which is equivalent to LG Chem's global installed capacity in 2020. On this basis, Tesla predicts that the rate of increase in vehicle deliveries in 2021 will exceed 50%. In the next few years, it is expected that vehicle deliveries will achieve an average annual increase of 50%, and there will be a huge demand for power lithium battery purchases. Currently, Tesla's battery suppliers have included Panasonic, LG Chem and CATL International's three major battery giants. Among them, Panasonic is still the number one supplier to Tesla, but LG Chem and CATL have achieved a rapid increase in the proportion of Tesla battery supply by virtue of supporting domestic Model3. Tesla requires its battery suppliers to increase battery output, which is conducive to ensuring the stability of its battery supply, locking in high-quality output, and reducing battery costs. It is worth noting that in addition to requiring suppliers to increase production, Tesla is also accelerating its pace of self-produced batteries. Musk previously announced at the European Battery Conference that he plans to expand the construction projects already underway near Berlin, Germany. He said that Tesla's Berlin-Brandenburg plant will become the world's largest battery plant. According to Musk, Tesla's Berlin plant will be able to produce 100GWh of batteries per year, and can even be expanded to 200 to 250GWh per year, or to produce its latest 4680 batteries. From the perspective of Tesla’s layout, on the one hand, Tesla deeply binds China, Japan and South Korea’s head battery companies to lock in the production and supply of high-quality batteries. On the other hand, it is also actively developing battery technology and using self-produced batteries as its market competition It is an important means to reduce its dependence on external battery procurement and further enhance its market competitiveness.