Tesla has officially announced its expected new battery and halving plants in northern Nevada, along with a $3.6 billion investment to make it happen. But are these plants really new, or has Gigafactory Nevada simply been completed to its originally planned size?
Earlier today we reported on Nevada governor hints at plans for a new Tesla factory, which was expected to be officially unveiled today. Tesla has now brought up blog post describing its progress on its previous investments in Nevada and plans for this new investment.
Tesla says it has already spent $6.2 billion in Nevada and hired 11,000 employees, while creating 17,000 local construction jobs to build the Gigafactory there, and that the factory produced:
- 7.3 billion battery cells (37 GWh + annually)
- 1.5 million batteries
- 3.6 million command units
- Million Energy Units (14 GWh + Total)
Those numbers are higher than Tesla’s original 2014 plan, which was to spend $3.5 billion on a plant to produce 35 gigawatt-hours of batteries annually, which would then employ 6,500 employees.
Since then, the electric vehicle market has expanded rapidly, which means that 35 GWh is still not enough to meet the global demand for Tesla electric vehicles.
Tesla said today:
We will invest more than $3.6 billion to continue growing the Nevada Gigafactory, adding 3,000 new team members and two new plants: a 100 GWh 4680 cell plant (with the capacity to produce enough batteries for 2 million lightweight vehicles annually), as well as our first half-volume plant.
Tesla’s announcement isn’t clear on whether these factories will remain on the same property as its existing giant factory, which is still about 60% complete when the offerings are compared to the current state of the building.
Depending on the new supply, these new plants may be in the same building. Compared to the existing building, which has an L shape, and the original and new renderings of the building, filling in this L shape would complement the building to look more like the renderings:
The announcement states that some of the $3.6 billion will be spent to continue growing the giant plant, but also to build two new plants. Previously, Electric A report has been written Tesla was building a production line for the Tesla Semi in a new building near the Nevada Gigafactoryso we’re not sure if he’s changing plans and he’s going to put all of this production under one roof, or continue to expand that new building nearby, or maybe both — maybe 4680 cells in They will be built in the main building, and half will be built in the secondary building.
This announcement comes the day before Tesla Earnings reportInteresting timing, sure. Tesla set a record for delivery with 405,000 vehicles were delivered in the fourth quarter and 1.3 million in 2022, although the Q4 number came in below expectations. Towards the end of the quarter, Tesla started offering discounts and it started recently Significantly reduce pricesindicating that it needs to fuel demand a bit after more than a year of big price increases while demand for electric vehicles skyrocketed.
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