No, this is a poorly written (copied) article. Panasonic and whoever else wants to can build a tab-less 4680 cell per Tesla’s spec. The part the Panasonic is researching is how to mass produce the cells. The end product will be identical to Tesla’s cells. So a 4680 cell from Kato road will be exactly the same as a 4680 cell from Panasonic.

Even Tesla is in the processes of trying to ramp 4680 cells. It takes almost 1000 cells for 1 model Y. So maintains Tesla’s production goal of 10,000 cars a week they would need 40 million cells a month or 10 million every week. The last news to come out of Kato road was the Tesla is aiming to produce a million cells in a month. Impressive but they still have a long way to go!

Plus they want to start building cyber truck and semi both of which are designed around the 4680 cells. So unlike 3/Y production can’t start until they have the needed cells. As Elon has said over and over Tesla is cell constrained!