General
Yesterday, a report was published online by Electrek claiming that Tesla Motors recently took delivery of a large quantity of battery cells produced by Samsung SDI. This resulted in a fluctuation of the stock market as Samsung's shares firmly rose, while Panasonic's faced a decline. Now, however, co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, has taken to his Twitter page to reveal that the firm hasn't signed for 120 tons of Samsung SDI 18650 batteries. Instead, the automotive giant has inked a contract to work exclusively with Panasonic for all for Model 3 cells.
Would like to clarify that Tesla is working exclusively with Panasonic for Model 3 cells. News articles claiming otherwise are incorrect.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 8, 2016
Speaking to The Verge, a Tesla spokesperson revealed that the company “works with all the leading battery suppliers around the world, [but] Panasonic has been [its] battery cell supplier throughout the Model S and Model X programs,” so it makes perfect sense for the car manufacturer to be “working very closely with Panasonic to ramp up battery cell production at the Gigafactory for Model 3” as there's no need to alter a partnership that's proved to be extremely effective in the past.
