500 GWH is almost 20 times the world production of lithium ion batteries in 2014.

Everybody in the world is fighting over battery supply to ramp up EV production, and Tesla is making sure they don't have to fight like the rest. It's a good long-term strategy. Even if their sales went below their battery production in the future, then they just become a battery supplier for the others.

their energy storage solutions are ramping pretty nicely: https://twitter.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1618366481292750848/photo/1

not just a car company.

I meant total sales, including energy.

It's also about 5x the total capacity of batteries they shipped last year. So quite a step, considering they have other battery factories and buy from external suppliers as well.

Tesla will be an energy company that makes cars as a hobby.

What’s the recycling plan?

They're already doing a lot of recycling internally, so that isn't much of an issue.

With current vehicle cell cycle life, large quantities of battery packs won't hit facilities for another 15-30 years.

Even if the car side of things fails, they could reposition themselves a battery company for other car makers. Get buyers asking "Are the batteries Teslas?"

EV battery recycling already exists. It won't get big until car batteries are being retired on a large scale.