No one, for the next several years, is going to use more batteries than Tesla. It may be five years or more before anyone catches up with Tesla in terms of cells consumed considering that Tesla will soon be manufacturing 4x to 5x as many EVs per year as the next highest volume manufacturer.
Bob, this is going back a little while now, but I've been away. I wonder what numbers you are anticipating for each of the major manufacturers to come up with Tesla being 4-5 times bigger than their biggest competitor.
I would guess that BAIC and BYD will both be selling around 200,000 EVs next year, but I think there's more upside than downside to that guesstimate. Numbers will probably continue to rise after next year. Zhidou, Geely, JAC and Chery are also significant players in China.
Nissan may get close to 200,000, judging by orders for the new Leaf. BMW, Renault, GM, Mitsubishi, etc. are also selling decent numbers of EVs, and if they manage to increase sales significantly next year they could be relevant to the overall market.
If Tesla manages to ramp up production of the M3 to plan, it may well be ahead of everyone else in EV sales, and even more so in battery demand, but I don't think it will be 4-5 times bigger than anyone else, and bearing in mind the growing number of competitors on the horizon, it won't have an overwhelming share of the overall EV market. Perhaps 15-25% next year if everything goes to plan?