Diehard

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The crazy thing is, Tesla seems to be letting them loose on the world and letting their manufacturers produce them for anyone who wants them. They are more concerned with getting reliable sources for them than they are with protecting their invention.
Panasonic probably only invest in the tech if they could sell in higher volume without being tied only to one customer. So if Tesla wanted for someone else with pedigree to help, they had to agree. May be after facing some of those challenges, Tesla realized experience matters and Panasonic is helping to resolve some of those manufacturing issues (just guessing). If Panasonic have to pay something to Tesla for each 4680 they sell to others, that is not a bad business decision for Tesla. Even if they don’t but Tesla gets the first dibs on anything they make, there will probably be none left for others anyway.
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Panasonic probably only invest in the tech if they could sell in higher volume without being tied only to one customer. So if Tesla wanted for someone else with pedigree to help, they had to agree. May be after facing some of those challenges, Tesla realized experience matters and Panasonic is helping to resolve some of those manufacturing issues (just guessing). If Panasonic have to pay something to Tesla for each 4680 they sell to others, that is not a bad business decision for Tesla. Even if they don’t but Tesla gets the first dibs on anything they make, there will probably be none left for others anyway.
I think Tesla and Panasonic have been far more collaborative than you think, for mutual benefit. If Tesla will buy all of the batteries Panasonic can make, why would Panasonic care about having more than one customer?
 

Diehard

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I think Tesla and Panasonic have been far more collaborative than you think, for mutual benefit. If Tesla will buy all of the batteries Panasonic can make, why would Panasonic care about having more than one customer?
I don’t know for sure if Tesla has made such a commitment but even if they had, provided investment in the factory is made by Panasonic, it would not be wise for Panasonic to put themselves in such a bind if they don’t have to. Tesla may not want that either. Let’s say some kid in lab in Singapore figured out how to put fusion in a can and Elon bought the tech. If he could make a CT with 500,000 mile range off of one can next year, he would not want to be stuck buying the batteries. It would be better for both of them if Panasonic could sell the batteries to someone that does not have access to the new Tech. I know Tesla looks bomb proof today but there are thousands of unlikely or unthinkable things that can happen to any business. Elon could have a heart attack and his replacement could be moron while other companies jump in to fill the vacuum. Thinking things will always be like it is today is not a good way of thinking for any business that want to survive long term.
 

rr6013

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I think Tesla and Panasonic have been far more collaborative than you think, for mutual benefit. If Tesla will buy all of the batteries Panasonic can make, why would Panasonic care about having more than one customer?
Panasonic are no contractor for hire. Manufacture is its forté. Mfg is a commodity business model selling volume into marketshares.

Having a partnership business model selling only one customer all your product on a shared risk basis is what you are implying. That indeed might have been the initial 18650 relationship @ GigaNEVADA.

BUT the new information that Panasonic have developed its own proprietary chemistry for 4680 cells belies that partnership is in force pertaining to newer batteries. It signals Panasonic branded version it is selling. Presumably, production offsite in Japan will sell internationally.
 

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Panasonic probably only invest in the tech if they could sell in higher volume without being tied only to one customer. So if Tesla wanted for someone else with pedigree to help, they had to agree. May be after facing some of those challenges, Tesla realized experience matters and Panasonic is helping to resolve some of those manufacturing issues (just guessing). If Panasonic have to pay something to Tesla for each 4680 they sell to others, that is not a bad business decision for Tesla. Even if they don’t but Tesla gets the first dibs on anything they make, there will probably be none left for others anyway.
Also, I’ve heard someone at Tesla suggest that patent protection only goes so far and execution is far more important. Being able to speed up their timeline is invaluable.

By making the 4680 “Public Domain”, Tesla encourages all of their manufacturers to adopt it so they can sell the technology to other companies. They give Tesla preferred pricing due to volume and so they can participate in Tesla’s battery party, so Tesla’s competitors finance the batteries Tesla uses in their car.
 


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1637172386706.jpeg


This is why Cybertruck is going to win the truck war at least in the near term.

<Snip>
Agreed.

Some use cases the Humble Hummer is heavy duty enough, simple point A to Point B enough with enough seatbelts to ”Get’R done”. Where Cybertruck specs overshoot the use case may be a capital write off for the GM purchase.

Cybertruck may force a depreciation schedule onto a GM buyer that he wasn’t looking to tax his business that way. Cybertruck structures a different write down financing and depreciation. Where a fleet of trucks are involved consequences drive decisions.

There stands the Handsome Hummer. LOL
 

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Agreed.

Some use cases the Humble Hummer is heavy duty enough, simple point A to Point B enough with enough seatbelts to ”Get’R done”. Where Cybertruck specs overshoot the use case may be a capital write off for the GM purchase.

Cybertruck may force a depreciation schedule onto a GM buyer that he wasn’t looking to tax his business that way. Cybertruck structures a different write down financing and depreciation. Where a fleet of trucks are involved consequences drive decisions.

There stands the Handsome Hummer. LOL
Agree.

The Hummer is going to be a very expensive experiment for GM. By the time they are done, they will have rolled out 10,000 of those $1m machines and sold them for $110k each. If you think abou it, it’s a bargain for the buyer.
 
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I think Tesla and Panasonic have been far more collaborative than you think, for mutual benefit. If Tesla will buy all of the batteries Panasonic can make, why would Panasonic care about having more than one customer?
Because having only one customer is big bad business. It means no matter how insane the demand, the supplier must bow to pressure from the buyer. That's how you get broken suppliers - from things like McDonald's ice cream machines to WalMart suppliers going belly up with the largest sales volume ever or NASA and military contractors raking it in and also missing deadline (and having factories where they don't make sense).

That's why I think it's more collaborative and the technology shared, so that Panasonic remains diverse and competitive.

-Crissa
 

Sirfun

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Because having only one customer is big bad business. It means no matter how insane the demand, the supplier must bow to pressure from the buyer. That's how you get broken suppliers - from things like McDonald's ice cream machines to WalMart suppliers going belly up with the largest sales volume ever or NASA and military contractors raking it in and also missing deadline (and having factories where they don't make sense).

That's why I think it's more collaborative and the technology shared, so that Panasonic remains diverse and competitive.

-Crissa
Aren't we talking about Panasonic only having 1 customer for 4680 batteries? Panasonic is still going to be making other batteries for their other customers, right?
 
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Crissa

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Aren't we talking about Panasonic only having 1 customer for 4680 batteries? Panasonic is still going to be making other batteries for their other customers, right?
I'm just giving a general case why one customer is bad.

There's more specifics, like having a factory for only one customer means all that investment is trapped in that one use case. It's like trying to build straights in more than one suit - that's just bad use of resources, too. You want as much as you can from that factory to apply back to your core business. So you can have synergy - like having the same suits in a straight.

-Crissa
 


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Aren't we talking about Panasonic only having 1 customer for 4680 batteries? Panasonic is still going to be making other batteries for their other customers, right?
Panasonic will be able to make 4680 cells for anyone.

Since Tesla‘s contracts only allow the most razor thin margins, the battery makers profits come largely from selling Tesla tech to other companies at a premium.

These other car makers don’t have a ton of choice but to follow Tesla right now, their platforms are… not remotely competitive. We’ll see other companies adopting the 4680 cells soon.
 

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That's how you get broken suppliers - from things like McDonald's ice cream machines
The machines are most often on a cleaning cycle when the ”not working right now” message comes over the intercom. McDonald’s is just bad at communication.
 
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The machines are most often on a cleaning cycle when the ”not working right now” message comes over the intercom. McDonald’s is just bad at communication.



tl;dr? McDonald's has a requirement for a specific machine for franchises to buy that isn't widely used and has a proprietary service interface from its partner, who then uses service as their money-leader.

-Crissa
 

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tl;dr? McDonald's has a requirement for a specific machine for franchises to buy that isn't widely used and has a proprietary service interface from its partner, who then uses service as their money-leader.
Not only do they use service as their main income, they are the king of “Right to Repair” examples. People who have come up with fixes for common issues for the machines get buried in litigation.
 

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tl;dr? McDonald's has a requirement for a specific machine for franchises to buy that isn't widely used and has a proprietary service interface from its partner, who then uses service as their money-leader.

-Crissa
I am going to take the video in stages. I can comment on the presenters deduction from the service manual read and alluding to intention to pay out on service and the statement made other fast food have the same machine/vendor but they do not experience the same downtime issues.

If later in the video, they prove substandard parts are put into McDonald’s machines, I can understand a delta in performance. If Wendy’s, Burger King and others have the same machine but, not the same downtime, something else is occurring.

Personally, when son was young and he wanted McDonalds, I asked often about the broken response. The verbiage was overwhelming it is not working now. I dug in deeper in my local area, many times speaking to managers and found them really on a cleaning cycle. My sampling is too small to extrapolate Across the country.

You can give cliff notes if they say the parts are different from other fast food places.

Franchises do list approved equipment the franchisee must use for consistency sake. Approved required equipment is a stand practice. It sucks when locations must have equipment not supported by local customer demand.
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