Panasonic aims to boost energy density in Tesla batteries by 20%

<i>&quot;by 20% in five years&quot;</i><p>20% now would be news. 20% in 5 years is &quot;what&#x27;s taking you so long&quot;? Since 2000, lithium-battery energy density has doubled each decade. There&#x27;s a limit, but another 100% improvement by 2030 is a projection.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;figure&#x2F;Projected-Li-ion-battery-costs-88-and-micro-battery-energy-density-92-as-functions-of_fig13_315747192" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;figure&#x2F;Projected-Li-ion-battery...</a>

This improvement is for cells made by Panasonic, for Tesla. The thing is, Tesla plans to be manufacturing its own cells by then, and they certainly don&#x27;t intend to produce less energy-dense batteries than their suppliers. We&#x27;ll see on Battery &amp; Powertrain Investors day (Sept. 22).<p>Elon recently invited OEMs to partner with Tesla for battery supplies. I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised that they keep their in-house cells for Tesla vehicles and stationary storage, and make &quot;their&quot; Panasonic cells available to auto competitors (this way, they secure the global supply chain, set prices for the industry, have the option to bundle other products&#x2F;services, etc.) &quot;Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.&quot;

Great but more important is how battery prices keep falling. Power density is already high enough that long range versions of the Model 3 can go 400 miles, which, with fast charging available when needed, is enough for the vast majority of auto owners.<p>The problem is that the battery pack that takes makes the cars too expensive to purchase for most people. But in a few more years falling prices will make ev&#x27;s similar in sticker prices to comparable ice&#x27;s. That plus much lower operating costs will cause ev sales to skyrocket.

Bold claim for something that I&#x27;d imagine must be pretty close to diminishing return on RD

Three years ago they were promising 3x by 2021. What happened?