Thanks, this is something important I forgot about.
Tesla and BYD went fully vertically integrated by now, while EU car companies have done the exact opposite over the last 20-30 years in the quest for maximizing shareholder returns, outsourcing everything to the cheapest bidder and resorted to mostly badge engineering, assembling cheap parts from various OEMs under high markups sometimes not even in their own factories, hoping the brand prestige alone will carry them.
When you outsource everything, in time you also loose core competence. Bringing back core competence is difficult but not impossible except now they're in a recession so they have a lot less money than before to invest in innovation.
Tesla never really figured out batteries. The cell building sections of Tesla's battery plant are run by Panasonic or LG. Tesla's own people just package them up into a big battery box.
As far is known publicly, Tesla has no solid state battery program. Everybody else who's big in batteries in Asia has a major solid state battery program. Volume production is still hard, but one vendor has made over 2 million samples, some of which are in test vehicles.
The expected performance of solid-state batteries is 500Wh/kg, 5 minute charge, survive nail test without fire or explosion. China is mandating that safety requirement after July 2026.[1]
The beginning of the end of classic lithium-ion is in sight.
3200 acres... the whole damn thing is vertically integrated. they make everything for their cars in the one giant factory.
Amazing stuff... BYD is destined to be bigger than toyota ever was