New Tesla Gigafactory drone footage – November 2016

It was only less than two weeks ago that we published our latest update on the Tesla Gigafactory so it’s not surprising that not much as changed. Nonetheless, I think this new drone footage taken earlier this week is worth sharing since it gives us a slightly closer look at the battery factory than the 360-degree image in the last update. 

The new drone footage was taken by Duncan Sinfield and posted to Youtube last night. You can watch it in full embedded below.

It looks like Tesla, Panasonic, and the contractors, are busy at the plant – both the temporary and the permanent parking lots are filling up with hundreds of vehicles.

Despite being only two weeks since our last look at the plant, we can still see some progress on the new structures. The steel beam structures now look completed and Tesla is working on the roofing.

Here’s a side-by-side of the factory from two weeks ago and yesterday:

As we reported in the last update, the Gigafactory is expected to be especially busy in the next few weeks as Tesla and Panasonic ramp up the production of the Powerpack 2 and the Powerwall 2, as well as the new 2170 battery cells.

The Gigafactory already has over 1.9 million square feet of operating space and once the new structures will be operational, the number will go up to ~4.5 million square feet or about 30% of the overall plant once it is expected to be completed in 2020.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sees a potential for the plant to produce up to 150 GWh of batteries at full capacity, but for now the objective 35 GWh in 2018 – the first full year of production for the Tesla Model 3.

Here’s the new November 2016 drone footage by Duncan Sinfield:

A few good high-resolution screenshots from the video: