Item — HN Reader

> Worldwide production of lithium-ion batteries in 2013 was around 35GWh

I don't think measuring it in terms of GWh is the best way to go about it, because a huge number of lithium ion batteries manufactured are NOT the type Tesla needs to use. Their battery packs are composed of 18650 size cylindrical cells.

Vast amounts of LiIon batteries manufactured today are pouch/flat type cells for laptops, tablets, mobile phones and other portable consumer electronics.

I would be very curious to see a number of the total estimated quantity of high-capacity 18650 cells manufactured worldwide in one year vs. the number of 18650 cells consumed by Tesla.

This ties neatly into another common economic fallacy: That capital is homogenous. Highly productive capital equipment is specialized, and requires long lead times for its production. It cannot quickly be repurposed for other uses. Thus, it's important that demand is genuine and not the result of "stimulus" that will waste a lot of capital equipment when stimulus is withdrawn.

That's why you use stimulus to fill in short periods of slack up to the baseline economic capacity, but not on top. In other words, why you apply stimulus counter-cyclically. It's a good point about stimulus spending within a particular part of the economy, though.