Tesla Gigafactory

Tesla has been giving tours of its Gigafactory all week starting with WSJ and NYT exclusives on Monday and followed by an important press tour on Tuesday, but during those events, Tesla and Panasonic blocked access or stopped the media from taking pictures of parts of the plant.

Now a group of VIPs got a tour of the factory for the ‘Grand Opening’ event today and they shared some great pictures of some of the most important machines at the Gigafactory, which have not been made public until now…
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Just as Tesla owners, executives, employees, and Nevada officials are gathering at the Gigafactory 1 in Sparks, Nevada, for its ‘Grand Opening’ today, we get a few more details about the plant’s ongoing expansions with the release of a new series of building permits.
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Yesterday was quite a day in Reno. While we weren’t able to fire off our livestream as we’d hoped, we were able to gather a ton of information on the “Coolest Factory in the world” I’ll break down the new info, videos and imagery below:
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As we discussed several times in the past, Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 is already producing battery packs for stationary energy storage, Powerwalls and Powerpacks, but the next two important milestones are battery cell manufacturing and vehicle battery pack manufacturing.

While the first battery cell assembly line is up at the plant, it’s not in operation and Tesla is sticking to its “later this year” projection. For the first time yesterday, Tesla gave some color on the first vehicle battery pack production at the Gigafactory, which can hint at the automaker updating its lineup in the near future.
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Following the media event and tour of the Gigafactory yesterday, Tesla released a new set of beautiful aerial pictures of the factory, showing the scale of the massive battery plant. You will find a gallery of the pictures below.
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We have seen the Tesla Model 3 black matte prototype and the silver prototype on a few occasions since the unveiling of the vehicle in March, but the red prototype that was at the event hasn’t been seen since… until now and it’s beautiful.
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Our publisher Seth is at the Tesla Gigafactory today for a media-only tour of the plant and a presentation/Q&A with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and CTO JB Straubel. I will relay live updates from him with pictures and videos when possible.
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The Reno, Nevada Gigafactory is a key differentiator in both the energy storage and EV space and therefore, one of the big keys to Tesla’s future and it opens officially this week.

The good news is we’ll be on hand and will be broadcasting live throughout the events this week. Stay tuned to Electrek where the first news should be coming tonight and extend to tomorrow’s press-only show.
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It is the Gigafactory’s big week. On Friday, Tesla will hold the ‘Grand Opening’ event for what has been called the ‘pilot plant’ of its battery factory, which will offer 13 million-square-foot of workspace once completed while the current plant cover just over 1.9 million-square-foot. The factory aims to produce at least 50 GWh of battery packs when at full capacity and to reduce the cost of batteries by more than 30%.

Now Tesla released a new picture of the ‘Gigafactory 1’ site in Nevada and it shows early work on 4 new sections, which should about double the size of the current plant.
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Things are starting to get interesting at the ‘Tesla Gigafactory 1’ ahead of the ‘Grand Opening’ event set for July 29th. The goal of the factory is to bring a ~30% cost reduction on battery production through vertical integration and economy of scale.

While Tesla has been manufacturing battery packs at the factory since late last year, battery cell production is expected to be the next big step for Tesla to achieve its goals for the plant. Panasonic, Tesla’s strategic partner for the factory, is in charge of battery cell manufacturing on site and is reportedly ramping up hiring for cell production at the plant.
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One of the prizes for the latest round of Tesla’s referral program, which ended last Friday, was an invite for two at the ‘Gigafactory Grand Opening’ on July 29. The invites are now going out with a few more details on the event, as well as a raffle for more invites for Tesla owners.
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The Tesla Gigafactory 1 is the Chocolate Factory and Elon Musk is Willy Wonka!

Tesla quietly created a ‘Golden Ticket’ drawing for all the Model 3 reservation holders who placed a pre-order during the first day and randomly selected 12 winners to receive an all-expenses paid trip to the Gigafactory Grand Opening.
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When Tesla inked a deal with the state of Nevada to build its giant battery factory near Reno, it was widely reported that Tesla received $1.3 billion in tax incentives. While the deal could be worth close to the amount over a 20-year period, it is not clear how much Tesla is currently getting from the state because it was awarded as sales and property tax abatements, transferable tax credits (TTC) and discounted electricity rates.

Through documents recently released by the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), we now learn that Tesla started profiting from transferable tax credits by selling around $20 million worth to MGM Grand Casino.
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For the most part, Tesla’s Gigafactory has looked the same from the outside since the beginning of the year. The first phase consists of 4 sections of about 475,000 square feet for a total of 1.9 million square feet. The final version of the building, which should be completed by the end of the decade, is expected to have 13 million square feet of manufacturing and work space. It should be enough to become the biggest building on earth by footprint and Tesla plans for the factory to produce at least as much battery capacity as the entire world production of li-ion cells.

Now we learn that Tesla is planning to add a new section to the plant with an estimated completion date by the end of the year, according a building permit recently issued to Tesla.
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While Tesla has been manufacturing battery packs at the Gigafactory for its energy storage division since last year, new battery cell production is expected to be the real hallmark of the giant battery factory and it has yet to happen.

Panasonic, Tesla’s strategic partner at the plant, is in charge of the cell production inside the facility and it is expected to begin the process by the end of the year. Now we learn that Panasonic is “gearing up for significant growth” at the Gigafactory and it will host a special invitation-only hiring event on location next week to for “positions in advanced manufacturing”.
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The pilot plant of Tesla’s ‘Gigafactory 1’ is almost completed and will be officially inaugurated at a special event on July 29.  Pictures of the ambitious facility, which is located east of Reno in Nevada, have been more scarce since two journalists from Gannett’s Reno Gazette Journal (RGJ) were involved in an altercation with two Tesla safety managers on the property while they were trying to take pictures of the factory late last year.

We’ve got an update with some up close pictures when Motor Trend did a photoshoot for the Model 3 at the Gigafactory a month ago, but we are now bringing you the most recent aerial shots of the factory.
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During the 2016 Shareholders Meeting today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the company could triple the total planned battery output of the Gigafactory to ~105 GWh of cells and ~150 GWh of battery packs – or over 3 times the current total li-ion battery production worldwide.

The new potential total capacity would be based on the current planned factory of 13 million sq-ft – with no expansion needed. Musk revealed a few other tidbits of information about the plant during the meeting.
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Tesla has been promising a special event to celebrate the opening of its battery factory in Nevada for a while now. Attending the event was even part of the prizes of Tesla’s second round of the Model S owner referral program. Now it finally has a date: July 29th. The company sent out the invitations to the top Model S referrers last night.
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German newspaper Handelsblatt, which has often produced reliable insider reports on the German auto industry, now cites insider sources saying that Volkswagen is about to present to its board of directors a plan to build a ‘multi-billion euro battery factory’.

The publication suggests that the plan is likely to be approved.

The battery cell supply chain is close to the number one priority of any automaker looking to manufacture electric vehicles in high volume. Ever since the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, VW has been under pressure to introduce more electric vehicles to its lineup and earlier this year, it announced plans to introduce 20 new electric vehicles through the group’s brands by the end of the decade.
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