Given the certain amount of planned obsolescence or acceptable battery lifetime in relation to consumer replacement, do you think that the batteries made for cars have been given much longer life because Tesla is buying in such large quantities?
No! They, the cells were
given much longer life because customer
wanted it. Customer == Tesla Motors.
Rest of the crowd.... How to say it - they definitely not evil. But producers of Smartphones or Notebooks DO NOT CARE if battery would last 3 years or 15. Furthermore, big players(top 5 control what? 60% of worldwide market or something?) would prefer battery that would last 2 to 3 years before dieing.... Not cuz they evil or conspirators! It is just customers wont pay extra $1 for smartphone that would last for 15 years instead of three or four. And provided the same price, biggies would pick battery that would last 2 years and a half or something, this would mean incentive for a client to buy new notebook in few years. So why battery producers disadvantage themselves?
And would it be worth putting the cars cells in flashlights and other consumer items that accept that form factor?
Yeah, that would be awesome! But most of the market do not "buy" 16850 cells. Consumers buy notebooks, flashlights etc. Not cells. And that creates market for "cells for laptops" which is dozens/hundreds of times bigger then consumer one. Have you replaced your battery or your gadget itself when you noticed past warranty problem(s) last time?
And now lets talk about price. Take this with a grain of salt but here is my IMO. From my understanding(limited). I personally follow A123. Just after they announced possibilities of bankruptcy, in a week or two they reported "our science team archived record energy density of the cells!" That did not make me laugh, but I indeed smiled, at least in my mind and sarcastically when I was reading the "news". From my understanding strong science team that specializes in secondary batteries have no problem producing Li-ion cells that have 10 000 cycles life. Or 600Wh/Kg cells. First one was shown by A123 itself in 20x0, where x is between 3 and 7. And that might have been 15 000 cycles. I remember counting myself - how many year such battery would last... More the 25! I was impressed, and I bet many were at the time. But reality is, it is not the cell that you can create in the lab that counts... But only cells that could be economically produced.
So what about 600Wh++/kg? This one was shown many hundreds of times... Practically. But who cares that after first 5 cycles capacity drops to 300Wh/kg and after 30 cycles drops to less then a 150Wh/kg? Definitely not a crowd who reads about breakthroughs! They are impressed by top numbers.
But bottom line... Cell manufacturers
DO have a space to maneuver as to regards of some parameters of cell production. And if Panasonic got NCA manufacturing process - they do have some freedom as to what resulting cells would be optimized for: price, power density, specific energy, longevity... List could go on and on. And some parameters contradict each other - like cell that have low IR would probably get less stable electrolyte. And that mean shorter lifespan of the cell itself.
Clients - pretty much any ones who order cells directly from Panasonic do have a say in by what parameters they want cells to be optimized... And by how much. Tesla, Dell, GM, DEWALT etc and so on do have battery scientists on payroll and they know/could reliably estimate how much this or that one chemistry adjustment would cost to industry player like Panasonic or LG etc...
PS. This dose not mean that Tesla Motors picked up most long lasting NCA chemistry/process offered by Panasonic. But I don't have any doubt that Tesla's Panasonic cells do not match NCR18650A aging profile... So while Panasonic can produce EV "optimized" cells that would last 3000 cycles with 10% degradation, and could produce same chemistry notebook use cells that last 500 cycles with 30% degradation.... It was and IS up to Tesla Motors to decide which cells they really want.