Tesla is now using pre-fab methods to accelerate buildout of new factories

Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla is now using some pre-fabricated building methods in order to accelerate the construction of its new factories.

While Tesla was focusing on its goal to accelerate the production of electric vehicles, it figured out that it needs to look at “the machine that builds the machine,” aka the factory.

The automaker has been increasingly focusing its efforts on manufacturing in order to accelerate its output of new cars.

One way it’s doing it is by rapidly building new manufacturing facilities.

Tesla went from a single factory in California to now operating three major factories around the world and having two more massive factories currently under construction.

Gigafactory Shanghai was particularly impressive, going from a piece of land to a factory producing vehicles in less than a year.

Tesla is currently expanding the factory in preparation for the start of Model Y production.

The automaker is also currently building Gigafactory Berlin from the ground up, and the new factory is expected to feature all the greatest manufacturing technology that Tesla has developed over the last few years.

But the buildout of the new plant itself is also interesting.

After some regulatory issues and the COVID-19 pandemic slowing down the project, Tesla started construction a few months ago, and now things are starting to move fast.

A new drone video shows that Tesla already has walls going up at the site:

Commenting on the rapid progress at the site last night, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla is using a “prefabricated construction method”:

Giga Berlin will come together at an impossible-seeming speed. The prefabricated construction method in Germany is extremely impressive.

Prefab construction has gained a lot of momentum in the last few decades.

It’s primarily known for its use in the residential construction industry and is now becoming more common in commercial and even industrial construction projects.

It consists of making parts of a new building offsite at a factory using manufacturing methods instead of construction processes in order to produce sections that are easier to assemble — reducing construction time and labor.

Therefore, you could say that they are building a new factory that is itself built (at least partly) in a factory.