Tesla has potential to be a large battery supplier: Morgan Stanley

As more and more analysts begin to understand the significant contribution to profit that Tesla's new Battery Cell Division will have, we'll see more re-ratings for them ....analysts need to realise the Grid Storage market will dwarf the EV market for lithium ion battery demand..........

Tesla will be an EV Battery Supplier on its own right, this lines up with what Dr Chris Burns responded to a question during his last webinar (see at bottom), from the 35min 10sec mark.

The question put to Dr Burns was "...would there be a partnership directly directly with Tesla, or is that from the agreements through Panasonic/Sanyo & Tesla?"

Dr Chris Burns replies with "we are focused on companies who have a supply chain, or who are going to be influences of that supply chain.... these agreements with Samsung and Panasonic exist because they are existing battery manufacturers...and of course there is a lot of coverage of Tesla's expansion to being vertically integrated and building their own cells and so they would certainly fall in this list of companies that would be interested in working with our materials......"






At the 43min 36 mark below, Dr Chris Burns answers a question about CATL and that Novonix wouldn't be a competitor to CATL.

This is because CATL have a supply chain that buys synthetic graphite today.

"More than anything else we would be looking at supporting CATL expansion, especially outside of China, as they build factories in Germany for example to service BMW. They will have pressure not to bring their supply chain from China, but localised supply chains". Which corresponds to Novonix's European plans.

CATL is the other battery cell manufacturer that has publicly announced a 1.2million mile battery.





Judging by Dr Chris Burns' answers above I would expect that Novonix will announce a Supply Agreement with Sanyo/Panasonic for Tesla's Giga Nevada 30-54GWh plant on Battery Day.

Novonix may also announce a Direct Supply Agreement directly with Tesla on Battery Day.

Since Tesla has been building its own Battery Cell factory at the KATO Road facility in California and more recently started construction of Texas Terafactory. An announcement from Novonix about a direct contract with Tesla would depend on how far down the track they are with qualifying the PUREgraphite anode material with them.

https://thedriven.io/2020/06/26/tesla-breaks-cover-on-24-hour-battery-factory-plans-for-california/

It is also critically important to listen, from the 45min 40sec mark, to what Group CEO Phil St Baker has to say about the demand for synthetic graphite in the coming years...hundreds of thousands to millions of tonnes of demand for synthetic graphite anode material....