With the announcement of Tesla’s plans to build a Gigafactory a few years back, not many people were keen to support the idea at first. For a lot of people, it was a plan that was going to cost way more to implement than you would see from the returns in any reasonable amount of time. However, given a little more time to digest the idea more people have begun to realize that maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all.
The monstrous Gigafactory is located in Reno, near Lake Tahoe in Nevada. It is the second largest building, by usable space, in the world and had its grand opening on 29th July 2016. The factory is looking to employ 10,000 permanent workers eventually when it is fully operational and will also need to employ temporary workers in the meantime for construction and road works that need to commence. Unlike Facebook and its Menlo Park development, the residents of Reno are quite excited about the new Gigafactory and they are welcoming some people and publicity it will bring to the area.
Inside what is looking to be the most advanced factory in the world, the Tesla Gigafactory is home to a range of different robots that will be in operation alongside humans, including self-navigating ones that move materials as they go or heavy duty robotic arms that are designed to handle bigger payloads of up to 700Kg. Some of the rooms are dedicated to storing and aging battery packs.
The batteries themselves, which are the main reason for building the factory, are only 21mm in diameter and 70mm in height, and the particular ones that will be fitted in the Model 3 will be called the 21-70. Although the car packs are half a centimeter taller than originally planned, they are still the same thickness as or slimmer than the current packs but with a much higher density. Also, once the 21-70’s are in production, they may be used in the Model S, X, and Powerwall.
Tesla’s big aim in the production of these batteries is to be able to get them to be around the $100/kWh mark before 2020. Knowing Tesla and what they have managed to achieve already added to the fact they have recently bought solar power giants, SolarCity, these goals do not seem very unrealistic. However, much of the company’s future success with the Gigafactory lies in how well the sales of the Model 3 do. Projections estimate the sales to bring in billions of dollars, but even Elon Musk understands that it is possible they may need to raise some capital at some point, but only time will tell.
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