Panasonic Reviewing Further Investment In Giga Factory

[Brian W + 78]

According to Tesla, Panasonic  and Tesla will continue to make new investments in the U.S. electric carmaker's Gigafactory as needed, but believe they can squeeze more out of existing resources than previously planned. 

Separately, Panasonic said it was watching the demand situation in the electric car market before making any further investments in expanding the capacity of the Nevada plant.

The two companies were responding to a report by Japan's Nikkei that said they had frozen previous plans to raise the capacity of the plant, which supplies battery packs for Tesla cars.

[BlackTortoise + 103]

I don't see why the market consider it a bad thing for Tesla/Panasonic to "squeeze more batteries" and EVs "out of existing resources and study market demand" to better forecast supply. Productivity improvements save cost and is always a good thing. 

[Vlad Kovalenko + 115]

Knowing the Japanese way of production, they'll squeeze out every bit of productivity of current infrastructure before investing in more raw capacity. Have in mind Gigafactory 1 is rather new and still tuning production processes. Everything else is BS to feed the shorters.

[Brian W + 78]

Agree. This should be better for cash flow.  Why continue to build so far ahead of what you need.  Keeping just ahead of demand seems very smart.

[Adam Varga + 123]

Well it seems a little bit concerning seeing that they are holding back production capacities in a view of lower demand projections. Tesla's Q1 report showed fall in delivery of 31% compared to Q4 last year. Model 3 demand for higher spec also might not be sustainable. China factory could look for local producers. Of course Panasonic needs to reevaluate.