Tesla adds an important 1 million sq-ft of space near the Fremont Factory

Tesla recently signed a lease for two new buildings in the Bay Area, adding a total of over 1 million square feet of production or warehouse space in the region, according to a new report from Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Real Estate Reporter, Nathan Donato-Weinstein.

The buildings are located in the new Oaks Logistics Center in Livermore, about 20 miles from Tesla’s Fremont factory. The buildings cover 635,533 square feet and 367,734 square feet, and there’s a third 294,000 square feet building that Tesla could also be looking into leasing according to Donato-Weinstein’s report.

He adds that Tesla is likely paying about 57 cents per square foot per month.

While the report suggests that the buildings are more likely to be used as warehouses than for manufacturing, it still adds significant space to Tesla’s operations in the bay area. The automaker’s main facility is of course the Fremont factory, which is one of the biggest buildings on earth with 5.3 million square feet of manufacturing and office space.

Tesla has also been adding more space closer to the factory to expand its operations, including the former Solyndra manufacturing building (500,000 sq-ft), another building on Kato Road in Fremont (300,000 sq-ft) and the Lathrop facility.

The news comes just as Tesla recently confirmed that it is currently working on increasing its production plans to minimize the wait for the Model 3 following the storm of reservations it received for the $35,000 all-electric sedan – approaching 400,000 cars as of the latest update.