NOVONIX The Replacement Tesla Research Team, page-126

The Pansonic/Tesla turnaround last month at the Nevada Gigafactory also took many analysts by surprise.  The news  appears to have broken from the 19th May from the articles I've seen online.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Te...asonic-reopen-talks-on-Gigafactory-investment

"There is very strong demand from Tesla," Panasonic Chief Financial Officer Hirokazu Umeda said when presenting the company's annual results Monday.

The Nevada plant, known as Gigafactory 1, fielded an annual battery-making capacity of 32 gigawatt-hours at the end of March, Umeda said. The partners had sought an expansion to 54 GWh during the fiscal year ended March 2019, but ultimately decided to freeze spending on the factory, citing tepid sales of electric vehicles.

Without the proposed expansion, capacity at the Gigafactory instead would inch up to 35 GWh by March 2022 due to improved materials and technology, Umeda said. That output would supply 500,000 electric vehicles.

Tesla and Panasonic had invested $4.5 billion in the plant as of April 2019. Panasonic, one of the world's biggest producers of EV batteries, manufactures the cells, and Tesla combines them into battery packs before assembling the cars at a California plant.

Panasonic's Tesla business suffered a loss for the fiscal year ended in March 2020. The U.S. battery factory alone became profitable in the second half of the financial year, but it has lagged in contributing to earnings. Yet that result apparently has the Japanese company cautiously considering new investment in the Gigafactory.

On the 15th of May - NVX come out with their

• 15/05/20 09:46
• Summary: NEW BATTERY MATERIALS MANUFACTURING METHOD PATENTED BY NVX

Curious to see if NVX breakthrough would indeed make Panasonic financials at Nevada even more profitable allowing them to reconsider expansion.  This supply deal is of course separate from any direct NVX Tesla connection.  It seems obvious that Sanyo will soon give the go-ahead to NVX for puregraphite to supply anode materials to source from North America and thus increase their marginals.