Panasonic 18650 High Capacity Lithium Batteries

Panasonic’s North American Chairman and CEO, Joe Taylor, told the press at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that he believes Tesla will produce some 500,000 electric vehicles per year starting in 2020.

Of course, this statement implies that the Gigafactory will be fully operational by 2020 and that Panasonic will be able to supply Tesla with enough cells for 500,000 electric vehicles per year.

As Business Insider notes, this 500,000-unit figure is "nearly 15x growth from last year, when Tesla manufactured roughly 35,000 units."

The Gigafactory is scheduled to open for limited production starting in 2017. It's unclear at this time when the Gigafactory will be able to produce enough cells for 500,000 Tesla per year, but Panasonic seems to think that production scale will be met starting in 2020.

Source: Business Insider