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1) Panasonic all out SLAMMING $TSLA in Japanese media today & its stock was +3% in Tokyo vs $TSLA -3%. WARNING: The details in this thread from today's Nikkei article on Pana's woes w/ Tesla is for mature $TSLAQ audiences only. It borders on "porno for Tesla shorts".
2) Nikke article today actually quotes anonymous Pana executives, who're pissed b/c $TSLAQ missed the 5K/week M3 target twice last year, forcing Pana to downgrade their own guidance twice. Turns out this happened again in Q1'19, which is new info in terms of Pana's earnings.
3) Pana planned $200m EBIT in its Energy Div for fiscal year Mar'19. Nikkei reveals that Pana actually lost -$180m, which means that Q1'19 EBIT alone at Pana went from a plan of $175m to a loss of -$190m. That's a $365m delta in one quarter & why Pana is fuming. It gets worse.
4) Musk frequently calls up Pana CEO Tsuga, saying "lower your battery prices". This is obscene b/c Musk pushed Pana to invest $2bn for 35GWh in LiB capacity at Giga-1 for output of 500K Model 3s/year. Q1 M3 output of 252K annualized, is ~50% capute. Hence Pana's frustration.
5) Pana execs balked at Musk's China plans last July. "The growth trajectory these guys are envisioning is way too steep," said one Pana exec, which is why Pana isn't taking part in Shanghai Giga. Instead, they're turning to Toyota and this is where things get medieval.
6) The most salacious bit of today's Nikkei article is the insinuation that Pana might use Giga-1 to supply Toyota in the future. "Pana plans to lower exposure to Tesla, while deepening ties w/ Toyota. A new EV JV in 2020 w/ Toyota will include Pana's *worldwide* LiB operations".
7) This sounds outlandish, but note that Pana's contract w/ $TSLAQ for Giga-1 states that Pana can sell any unused LiBs by $TSLAQ to 3rd party customers. So ironically, Model 3's demise will lead to a new LiB supply source for Toyota. What a strange twist of things for $TSLAQ.
