Tesla's domestic Model 3 battery manufacturer is finally confirmed!

According to foreign media reports, Tesla has reached a procurement agreement with LG, and the future domestic version of Model 3 will use NCM811 batteries produced by LG Chem in Nanjing Xingang Development Zone.

This time, the NCM 811 battery provided by LG has greatly improved in cost and energy density compared with ordinary lithium batteries. This is also the focus of research by mainstream battery manufacturers other than LG, such as South Korea's SK Innovation and CATL.

This cooperation may make the relationship between Tesla and Panasonic not as close as before.

Before Tesla came to China, Panasonic had been Tesla's only automotive-grade battery supplier. In 2014, the two parties signed an agreement to build a joint venture factory. Panasonic also set up a related battery production line in Tesla's No. 1 Super Factory.

According to data from 2018, Tesla's installed capacity accounts for about 80% of Panasonic's total installed capacity. Driven by Tesla, Panasonic has occupied 40% of the passenger car lithium battery market.

However, as Tesla Model 3 production accelerated, especially after Tesla built a factory in China, its annual production capacity in the Chinese market alone reached 150,000 vehicles, putting pressure on Panasonic's production, and the relationship between the two sides began to have differences over production capacity.

In April this year, Musk publicly "blasted" Panasonic on Twitter, saying that the slowdown in factory operations was the culprit for limiting Model 3 production capacity.

Many battery manufacturers hope to fill Panasonic's vacancy. Tesla has also contacted different battery manufacturers and many rumors have arisen.

Last year, Musk generously admitted that "the batteries are likely to come from several companies, including Panasonic." According to Korean media reports, in October last year, Tesla executives met with two major battery manufacturers, Samsung SDI and LG, and signed a $33 million contract with Samsung SDI in December.

In January this year, there were rumors that Tesla's domestic Model 3 battery partner was Tianjin Lishen, but Tesla later denied it. In early July, there were also reports that Tesla would form a joint venture with Shanghai Huayi Group to produce batteries.

China has become the largest automobile consumer market. In addition to increasing battery density and developing batteries with better performance, many battery manufacturers are also expanding their production capacity in China. LG's factory in Xingang already has mass production capacity, and its second factory in Nanjing Binjiang is about to start production. In addition, LG Chem has also announced that it will establish a joint venture with Geely Auto to produce and supply power batteries.

Near the end of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the 11th batch of "Recommended Model Catalog for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles" in 2019. The long-awaited domestically produced Tesla Model 3 appeared among the newly released models. According to the catalog, the domestically produced Model 3 meets the product technical requirements for fiscal subsidies in 2019, which means that consumers who purchase the domestically produced Tesla Model 3 will enjoy my country's fiscal subsidies for new energy vehicles, which is considered to have caught the "last train" of subsidies.

In fact, Tesla first applied for the new product announcement of the "Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products" on November 18, and it was approved by the relevant departments in less than a month. Auto People Reference learned through checking the details of the model announcement that the manufacturer of the domestic Model 3 power battery is marked as "Tesla Corporation and Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd."

Further digging, the domestically produced Model 3 announced this time has two configuration IDs, the only difference is the ternary lithium-ion battery carried. The two types of batteries have a range of 445km and 455km respectively, the battery system energy density is 145Wh/kg and 153Wh/kg respectively, and the power consumption per 100 kilometers is 12.4 kWh and 12.5 kWh respectively.

Combined with a report from Bloomberg in August this year, "South Korea's LG Chem will supply Tesla with 21700 batteries, which will first be used in Model 3 cars produced in the Shanghai factory, and the supply agreement is not exclusive."

The two battery configurations of the domestically produced Model 3 are most likely from South Korea's LG Chem and Japan's Panasonic.

Prior to this, Japan's Panasonic has been Tesla's only power battery supplier, and LG Chem, which has an obsession with Tesla, has been submitting battery test samples to Tesla for the past three years. Earlier this year, LG Chem announced an additional 1.2 trillion won (about 1.07 billion US dollars) to its Nanjing factory in China, of which 600 billion won will be used for cylindrical battery production.

From this point of view, it is a fact that LG Chem has officially entered the domestic Tesla battery supply chain.