PALO ALTO, U.S. -- Tesla's massive Australian energy-storage facility, which CEO Elon Musk vowed to build quickly after regional outages, will be equipped with battery cells from Samsung SDI instead of main supplier Panasonic.
The decision to use Samsung SDI is a blow to Panasonic, which has its hands full with orders for electric-vehicle batteries. To meet a self-imposed deadline of 100 days, Tesla turned to the South Korean company since it could swiftly supply the cells. Tesla is importing the cells to the U.S. for final assembly before sending them to Australia -- apparently taking the promotional benefits over profit.
