Tesla Gigafactory

Ever since Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the automaker will decide on a location in Europe in 2017 for what the company has been referring to as ‘Gigafactory 2’, several countries have launched efforts to convince Tesla to build the plant in their country.

The race is now heating up as the French Economy Minister visits Tesla’s Fremont factory to reportedly woo the company.
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Back in October, we reported that Tesla invited investors to a special event at the Gigafactory on January 4th. This week, Tesla sent out the official invites and confirmed that CEO Elon Musk will be there for a talk with management, including CTO JB Straubel. Our understanding is the focus will be on touring the factory, which recently doubled in size, and not on access to management.
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The latest drone footage taken at the Tesla Gigafactory site in Nevada shows progress on south and north expansions of the battery plant ahead of the impending production ramp of the second generation of Tesla Energy production, Powerwall 2 and Powerpack 2, and the start of battery cell production by Panasonic.
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Earlier this year, we learned that Tesla is expanding the scope of the Gigafactory in Nevada to not only manufacture battery cells and packs, but also electric motors on new ‘Drive Unit assembly lines’. It was revealed through job postings at the factory, but now Tesla is “expanding its manufacturing team in the Gigafactory” with several new job openings announced today by the company’s Vice-President of Engineering for Drive Systems & Vehicle NVH.

The effort appears to be to support the manufacturing of the new third-generation drivetrain architecture that Tesla developed for the Model 3. 
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Earlier this week, we reported on Tesla receiving $8 million in tax credit for the Gigafactory after passing an audit for job creation and investment requirements. The audit was based on Tesla’s progress at the plant as of June 2016: 331 jobs created and $450 million in investments.

Even though it satisfies the state’s requirements, the local media today highlighted the fact that job creation at the plant doesn’t align with a study of the impact of the battery factory dating back in 2014. While responding to the critic, Tesla confirmed that the Gigafactory now employs over 850 workers and that the company expects to add 1,000 more during the first half of 2017.

Update: those numbers are only for Tesla employees, Panasonic is also employing hundreds of people at the factory.
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While it was widely reported that Tesla received $1.3 billion in incentives from the state of Nevada to build its factory east of Reno, the automaker has only received a fraction of that amount so far and it is gradually unlocking portions of it as it reaches job and investment requirements under the agreement.

After going through an independent audit to verify that it was meeting those requirements, Tesla has unlocked this week another portion of the transferable tax credits.
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In the few weeks since Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the automaker will decide on a location in Europe next year for what the company has been referring to as ‘Gigafactory 2’, an electric car and battery factory modeled after Tesla’s first Gigafactory in Nevada, a few countries have already launched efforts to convince Tesla to build the new plant on their own soil.
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As we recently reported in our latest updates about the Tesla Gigafactory, it grew in size a lot over the past few months. New sections south of the plant and one north of it added 3.45 million square feet to the already 1.9 million square feet of existing space at the factory.

It looks like Tesla plans for it to keep growing as the company obtained permits for over $60 million in construction projects at the factory over the last month.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk and CTO JB Straubel are in Germany today to announce the acquisition of a German engineering group, Grohmann Engineering. Following the announcement, they held a press conference during which Musk emphasised that Tesla is planning “significant investments” in Germany and the conversation quickly moved to Tesla not only investing in engineering in Europe, but also in production.

Musk confirmed that Tesla plans to choose a location for ‘Gigafactory 2’ in Europe next year and he added that the factory will combine both the production of batteries and complete cars.
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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. 
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Despite likely being Tesla’s most important fundamental product developed so far, we know very little about the new 2170 battery cell to be manufactured at the Gigafactory in Nevada. Tesla and its manufacturing partner, Panasonic, are keeping a lid on the details.

Last night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a bold claim [I know, shocker] about the new cell that will be the foundation for much of Tesla’s product line over much of the next decade. During a conference call with analysts yesterday, he said that the battery cell is the “best and cheapest in the world”.
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While reporting Panasonic’s latest financial results, Chief Executive Kazuhiro Tsuga commented about the company’s growing partnership with Tesla. Tsuga warns that Panasonic could have problems aligning its production capacity with Tesla’s demand for batteries without more investments.
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Tesla’s Gigafactory is about to get busy. Well, it’s already quite busy with construction, but we are now talking about production. Some Tesla energy products have been trickling out of the factory for a year now, but with the new generation (Powerwall 2 and Powerpack 2) – things are about to get serious.

Now we get our latest look at the progress at the plant through a stunning new 360-degree image.
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In its letter to shareholders today, Tesla not only had good news to share about the last quarter (turned a profit for the first time in 3 years), but they also confirmed some good news for its ongoing plans for the future, including Model 3’s road to production.

Tesla confirmed that they completed production line layouts for the vehicle and they are now deep in the testing of the subsystems.
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While the attention around Tesla is mainly on the upcoming announcement on Wednesday and the event with SolarCity on October 28, there also have been talks through Tesla investor channels about an upcoming event at the Tesla Gigafactory on January 4, 2017.

Today Tesla confirmed the event during which investors will have a chance to visit the plant, similar to the event for the media and Tesla owners back in July, and see where a lot of their money is going.
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The Tesla Gigafactory is key to the automaker’s planned production ramp up to 500,000 cars per year by 2018. It is expected to both significantly reduce the cost of Tesla’s battery packs, which will enable Tesla to reach the $35,000 price point for the Model 3, and to secure a large supply of battery cells.

Those two products, battery cells and battery packs, were until now the only products expected to be manufactured at the factory.

We now learn that Tesla plans to also manufacture drive units at the plant. With vehicle battery packs, the automaker will be closer to producing its entire next generation powertrains at what is expected to be the largest factory in the world by footprint.
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Back in July, Tesla officially inaugurated the first phase of its Gigafactory in Nevada – the first 4 sections of the building seen above. Now new aerial pictures show that the automaker is already well on its way to bring up the structures for 4 more sections to more than double the size of the already massive plant.

The pilot factory is about 1.9 million square feet of operational space, but those new constructions ahead of the start of battery cell production will increase that number significantly.
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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.
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At the end of last quarter, Tesla had a bigger cash position than ever before with $3.25 billion in principal sources of liquidity – thanks to its recent $1.7 billion stock offering, which was announced to finance the expansion of Tesla’s manufacturing effort for the Model 3 following the increased demand.

Now it looks like Tesla will need more money to finance its ambitious plans. Today, Tesla confirmed that its is currently planning another round of financing.
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