In his new “Tesla Battery Report”, Dr. Menahem Anderman, independent battery expert, consultant and head of the Advanced Automotive Batteries conferences and publications, concludes that with the planned Gigafactory, now targeted for Nevada, Tesla may succeed in accomplishing what the US Government failed to achieve—i.e., to establish a domestic Li-Ion battery industry.

However, there remain a number of questions and risk factors associated with the project for Tesla, Anderman notes, including profitability, participation of materials suppliers, and macro trends in the market such as demand, the continuation of government subsidies, competitive battery technology and the role played by ZEV credits.