While it will take some time to impact the market, and there is no indication of the mix of natural and synthetic graphite, it is a huge vote of confidence in the future of Li-I batteries.
Equally intriguing is Leon Musk's interest in Solar City and Li-I's potential as a storage solution. By driving costs down in such a massive facility is Musk aiming Li-I at the stationary market?
"Even if Tesla sells the 500,000 mass-market vehicles it desires, and continues to make the Model S and Model X, the Gigafactory should still have a remaining 10 GWh of manufacturing capacity left, Jaffe said. That remaining capacity could be used to support -- and expand -- its burgeoning stationary (as opposed to portable -- that is, cars) energy storage business. Tesla already supplies the California energy services company SolarCity with batteries for energy storage systems designed for commercial buildings. SolarCity has worked closely with Tesla for more than three years in its development of a stationary storage product, said Eric Carlson, SolarCity's senior director of grid systems integration. (Tesla's Musk is also chairman of SolarCity.)"