[sah2ed]

I think Musk realizes that electric cars will be a commodity which will lead to razor-thin margins. The one thing that's not yet a commodity, and will not be for a while, is lithum-ion battery tech which is why they are building the gigafactory to cement their place as near sole supplier to the rest of the industry when they eventually catch up with selling all-electric drive trains.

[maxerickson]

Tesla is going to consume the entire output of the gigafactory and build also more battery factories.

And there are already examples of other companies making lots of batteries. LG is making them for the Bolt.