Panasonic Investing "Tens Of Billions" Of Yen In Tesla Gigafactory

Because they are for-profit businesses, not benevolent charities.

Indeed. I await the fun show when someone comes up with a battery schema which overcomes the many problems with the battery technology produced by the Tesla factory. And believe me, that quantum jump will come, and it'll come most probably before that factory has come to a full year of production. Wanna bet?

There are no leaps in battery development, just incremental changes. Chemical storage has its fundamental limitations. The future is not BEVs, but H2 FCs.

The next leap is pretty much already in research and development or testing for both fuel cell stacks and batteries, same with "fusion" reactors...The best part is, they are cost competitive with Gas and Coal respectively. I'm sure this factory will need to convert within a few years from opening to keep up. Ryden Dual Carbon Batteries, Graphene laced with coal carbon nano dot fuel cell stacks to replace the platinum, and University of Washington's Dynomak reactor. There are also competitors out there too if any of these don't pan out. The next 10-20 years is going to be exciting and revolutionary as we finally move beyond the 20th century into a new age of clean affordable energy.

@Da Coyote Already have, Ryden dual carbon batteries. http://powerjapanplus.com/

@Da Coyote If this magical jump in technology was just over the horizon, Panasonic would know about it and avoid the Gigafactory.

@nickoo I'll believe in that battery (Ryden dual-carbon) when it shows up in something. Military applications are demanding and cost-insensitive, so it should be there first. Smartphones, with a big appetite for current and not much physical space in which to store it and a high price usually concealed from the consumer by an ultimately larcenous contract would be another logical place to find these batteries. So far, the Ryden is a no-show in all these applications.

@JDavis >> The future is not BEVs, but H2 FCs. Let's see how long they allow those 10,000 PSI tanks to be parked in building basement garages or driven through long underground highway tunnels. Would you fill a vehicle with a 10,000 psi tank with your child seated in the car over the tanks. Yeah, I know, nothing will ever go wrong with those tanks.

@KixStart Give it some time :) It was only announced to the public a few months ago! Supposedly it is going to be used in a formula E car, but I don't have the knowledge to verify if/how that's going.

@nickoo Do you read http://www.greencarcongress.com too?

@Big L from Chicago Sometimes, I am a big fan of science daily as well.

Yeah, but how many Vietnamese Dong are they prepared to risk?

@DeadWeight I skipped Dong because...well...Dong.

@thelaine I should have skipped it because...well..Daily Kanban.

@DeadWeight I had forgotten about that site. Checked it out. It is pretty good.

@DeadWeight It was originally called 'Bertel's Back Alley.'