News
New Panasonic CEO talks Tesla battery partnership and 4680 cell production
New Panasonic President and Chief Executive Officer Yuki Kusumi is taking over a leaner version of the 103-year-old Japanese conglomerate. Thanks to the efforts of his predecessor, Kazuhiro Tsuga, who spent almost nine years optimizing Panasonic by letting go of struggling businesses like Plasma TVs, Kusumi could now take the reins of a company that is ready to face the future. This means that Panasonic would be doubling down on its electric car battery business, headlined by its partnership with the world’s premier EV maker, Tesla.
Tesla and Panasonic’s joint operations in Gigafactory Nevada have had their own fair share of challenges, with the automaker putting pressure on its Japanese partner to produce more batteries for its vehicles. Over the years, Panasonic has been pushed frequently by Tesla to produce more batteries, particularly as the demand for the Model 3 hit its pace. With this experience in mind, the new Panasonic CEO noted that moving forward, the Japanese battery maker would be focusing its efforts on raising its output while keeping facility costs low.
“It doesn’t matter how much you want to grow sales or increase profit if you don’t have the capacity to do so. Within our new structure, we’re going to polish this ability, and if you stay tuned, we’ll invest again in building supply capacity,” Kusumi noted.
For now, Panasonic is looking to set up a prototype production line to test 4680 battery cells. The 4680 format was highlighted last year by Tesla during its Battery Day event, and it was framed as a possible catalyst for more affordable electric vehicles. Kusumi stated that if Panasonic could produce the high-quality 4680 cells more efficiently than its rivals, it would be making a “large investment” in the technology. It may also supply the batteries to both Tesla and other automakers.
When asked by Bloomberg about its electric vehicle business, the new Panasonic CEO explained that EV batteries are central to the company’s growth strategy for the coming years. He also noted that Panasonic would work to refine its battery manufacturing techniques to keep itself competitive, despite the emergence of aggressive competitors from South Korea and China.
-->“(The) battery unit will be one of the central segments of our energy business. We believe it’ll contribute to the environment, and we intend to see it grow further. Competition within the industry is quite fierce, but the battery business is making extremely large facility investments. It’s important to work with manufacturing techniques to efficiently produce batteries in low cost facilities.
“Refining this ability along with further investments will give us the competitiveness to grow further. With the next generation of batteries, we aim to grow by not only producing high-quality batteries but also by making the production procedure more efficient and competitive while improving the competitiveness of our manufacturing. We’ll continue to challenge ourselves and grow,” Kusumi said.
Watch Bloomberg‘s interview with new Panasonic CEO Yuki Kusumi in the video below.
(Quotes from the article courtesy of Bloomberg.)
-->Do you have anything to share with the Teslarati Team? We’d love to hear from you, email us at tips@teslarati.com.
News
Tesla sees sharp November rebound in China as Model Y demand surges
New data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) shows a 9.95% year-on-year increase and a 40.98% jump month-over-month.
Tesla’s sales momentum in China strengthened in November, with wholesale volumes rising to 86,700 units, reversing a slowdown seen in October.
New data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) shows a 9.95% year-on-year increase and a 40.98% jump month-over-month. This was partly driven by tightened delivery windows, targeted marketing, and buyers moving to secure vehicles before changes to national purchase tax incentives take effect.
Tesla’s November rebound coincided with a noticeable spike in Model Y interest across China. Delivery wait times extended multiple times over the month, jumping from an initial 2–5 weeks to estimated handovers in January and February 2026 for most five-seat variants. Only the six-seat Model Y L kept its 4–8 week estimated delivery timeframe.
The company amplified these delivery updates across its Chinese social media channels, urging buyers to lock in orders early to secure 2025 delivery slots and preserve eligibility for current purchase tax incentives, as noted in a CNEV Post report. Tesla also highlighted that new inventory-built Model Y units were available for customers seeking guaranteed handovers before December 31.
This combination of urgency marketing and genuine supply-demand pressure seemed to have helped boost November’s volumes, stabilizing what had been a year marked by several months of year-over-year declines.
-->For the January–November period, Tesla China recorded 754,561 wholesale units, an 8.30% decline compared to the same period last year. The company’s Shanghai Gigafactory continues to operate as both a domestic production base and a major global export hub, building the Model 3 and Model Y for markets across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, among other territories.
Tesla bear Michael Burry got blunt with his beliefs over the company’s valuation, which he called “ridiculously overvalued” in a newsletter to subscribers this past weekend.
“Tesla’s market capitalization is ridiculously overvalued today and has been for a good long time,” Burry, who was the inspiration for the movie The Big Short, and was portrayed by Christian Bale.
Burry went on to say, “As an aside, the Elon cult was all-in on electric cars until competition showed up, then all-in on autonomous driving until competition showed up, and now is all-in on robots — until competition shows up.”
Tesla bear Michael Burry ditches bet against $TSLA, says ‘media inflated’ the situation
For a long time, Burry has been skeptical of Tesla, its stock, and its CEO, Elon Musk, even placing a $530 million bet against shares several years ago. Eventually, Burry’s short position extended to other supporters of the company, including ARK Invest.
Tesla has long drawn skepticism from investors and more traditional analysts, who believe its valuation is overblown. However, the company is not traded as a traditional stock, something that other Wall Street firms have recognized.
While many believe the company has some serious pull as an automaker, an identity that helped it reach the valuation it has, Tesla has more than transformed into a robotics, AI, and self-driving play, pulling itself into the realm of some of the most recognizable stocks in tech.
Burry’s Scion Asset Management has put its money where its mouth is against Tesla stock on several occasions, but the firm has not yielded positive results, as shares have increased in value since 2020 by over 115 percent. The firm closed in May.
In 2020, it launched its short position, but by October 2021, it had ditched that position.
Tesla has had a tumultuous year on Wall Street, dipping significantly to around the $220 mark at one point. However, it rebounded significantly in September, climbing back up to the $400 region, as it currently trades at around $430.
It closed at $430.14 on Monday.
Tesla appears to be making a change to its exterior side repeater cameras, which are used for the company’s Full Self-Driving suite, and other features, like Sentry Mode.
The change appears to be a potential upgrade in preparation for the AI5 suite, which CEO Elon Musk said will be present on a handful of vehicles next year, but will not be widely implemented until 2027.
Currently, Tesla uses a Sony sensor lens with the model number IMX963, a 5-megapixel camera with better dynamic range and low-light performance over the past iteration in Hardware 3 vehicles. Cameras in HW3 cars were only 1.2 megapixels.
However, Tesla is looking to upgrade, it appears, as Tesla hacker greentheonly has spotted a new sensor model in its firmware code, with the model number IMX00N being explicitly mentioned:
Looks like Tesla is changing (upgrading?) cameras in (some?) new cars produced.
Where as HW4 to date used exterior cameras with IMX963, now they (might potentially) have something called IMX00N— green (@greentheonly) December 1, 2025
Sony has not announced any formal specifications for the IMX00N model, and although IMX963 has been used in AI4/HW4 vehicles, it only makes sense that Tesla would prepare to upgrade these external cameras once again in preparation for what it believes to be the second hardware iteration capable of fully autonomous self-driving.
Tesla has maintained that AI4/HW4 vehicles are capable of self-driving operation, but AI5 will likely help the company make significant strides, especially in terms of overall performance and data collection.
Tesla last updated its exterior cameras on its vehicles back in early 2023, as it transitioned to the 5-megapixel IMX963. It also added additional cameras to its vehicles in January with the new Model Y, which featured an additional lens on the front bumper to help with Full Self-Driving.
Tesla’s new self-driving computer (HW4): more cameras, radar, and more
Tesla sees sharp November rebound in China as Model Y demand surges
Tesla bear gets blunt with beliefs over company valuation
