Kurt Kelty

Bio

Mr. Kelty is the Senior Director of Battery Technology at Tesla Motors in Palo Alto, California. His team in Palo Alto is responsible for setting and implementing Tesla's battery cell usage strategy. Kelty is responsible for the technical exchanges and commercial negotiations with each of the battery cell suppliers and early stage battery cell developers. He leads the team that is particularly focused on evaluating the performance and reliability of cells. Kelty also leads the partnerships and battery cell material sourcing efforts at the Gigafactory, Tesla's battery manufacturing facility in Nevada. He is responsible for forming and implementing relationships to co-locate at the Gigafactory or to source materials from external suppliers. Ultimately, Kelty is responsible for all the material costs and performance of the battery cells made at the Gigafactory. Kelty is also responsible for sales of Tesla's Energy Products in Japan. Before joining Tesla, Kelty worked for Matsushita (Panasonic) for nearly fifteen years, seven of those years in Japan. At Panasonic, Kelty worked in various planning and marketing capacities related to Ni-MH and Li-ion batteries. During the last 5 years, he founded and led Panasonic's battery research lab in Silicon Valley and created R&D alliances between Panasonic and other battery and fuel cell developers in the U.S. Kelty received his B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College in 1986 and his MSc from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 1997. He is the author of over 16 patents.