Now, Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga encourages that profits on battery production for Tesla Model 3 are just around the corner, while local production in Japan (for Model S and Model X) is already profitable (probably for a long time now we'd guess).

""We will be in a position to deliver profits at a very early stage," Tsuga said, declining to specify a timeline. "There is no doubt about it, once we complete the current build-up.""

Tesla Gigafactory will be ready to crank out 35 GWh of cells using 13 production lines by the end of this year (two more need to be launched). The total costs on Panasonic's side is to exceed 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion). That gives us the number of more than $51/kWh of installed annual production capacity.

""Once things settle down, you can control profit on line-by-line basis," he said. "The first 10 lines are pretty much already there.""

According to Panasonic Chief Financial Officer Hirokazu Umeda, company operations will begin to contribute to profit from this quarter.