Late this week, reports from Japan are indicating that Tesla's battery partner, Panasonic, is freezing planned spending for its US-based Gigafactory 1. But, that's not all.
Panasonic is also stopping its investment into Tesla's Shanghai plant.
The impact was immediately felt as shares of Tesla wrapped up the week at $267.70/share. This is pretty jarring news, to be honest. I think many people in both the finance community as well as electric vehicle space were banking on the success of the Gigafactory to keep Tesla moving forward.
If there's demand destruction actively happening and now the plants take a hit, what's next?
As Agent 009 posted, the entry-level $35,000 Model 3 is no longer available via Tesla's website. According to reports you can still acquire the $35,000 vehicle, you just have to walk into a showroom that hasn't been shuttered just yet and hope one is waiting for you. The base Model 3 has had its price has increased to $39,500 and autopilot is now standard.
Tesla's blog breaks it down here.
Tesla and Panasonic are freezing plans to expand the capacity of their Gigafactory 1, the world's largest EV battery plant, as concerns mount on Wall Street about sales at Elon Musk's car company dipping below estimates.
The partners had planned to raise capacity 50% by next year, but with sales of electric vehicles performing below plans, the two companies concluded that a major investment at this stage poses too much of a risk, Nikkei has learned.
Tesla's goals of becoming a mass producer of electric vehicles, on the order of 1 million cars a year, will be pushed back for now...
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