New aerial picture of the Tesla Gigafactory shows new sections going up

We haven’t shared an update on the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada since the inauguration of the first phase of the project back in July. But today, we get our first look in two months with this new picture showing the latest sections of the plant going up.

A reader, Lonnie Ganz, flew over the plant today and sent us the beautiful picture seen above (and in full resolution below) from 40,000 ft.

Two months ago, Tesla had installed the foundations for the new sections, but now we can clearly see new steel structures going up, as well as what looks like the foundations for yet again two more sections south of the new structures.

Here’s the full resolution picture (thanks Lonnie!) and the aerial view from two months ago:

Based on the building permits Tesla obtained in July, sections E and F are the ones with the new structures going up, and presumably, the two new seismic anchoring foundations would be for sections G and H.

Some readers teamed up and shared a few renders of the Gigafactory with a superimposed grid to show the new sections in one of our recent Gigafactory articles. Here’s an update with the two new foundations added in red:

With the new 80 MWh Powerpack project for Southern California Edison announced yesterday, the Gigafactory should be pretty busy in the next few months. Additionally, the start of battery cell production with Panasonic is still expected to start by the end of the year.

During his presentation at the Gigafactory Grand Opening in July, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reaffirmed that they expect the factory’s capacity to be able to reach 150 GWh at full capacity.