After Nevada state officials’ confirmation, Tesla finally announced their next big factory investment at Giga Nevada today. Elon Musk’s company will invest over $3.6 billion to build Tesla’s largest EV battery cell production plant in the world.
Related Article: How Many Gigafactories Does Tesla Have?
Giga Nevada, also known as Gigafactory 1, is somewhat of a joint venture between Japanese battery maker Panasonic and Tesla. The initial investment made in 2014. Since then, both parties spent a total of $6.2 billion to create one of the largest manufacturing sites in the United States. According to Tesla, as of today, the Giga Nevada team has successfully produced more than 7.3 billion battery cells, 1.5 million battery packs, 3.6 million drive units, and 1 million energy modules.
The next phase of this investment will cost over $3.6 billion and includes a 100 GWh 4680 cell factory, as well as the first high-volume Tesla Semi factory. Tesla has been manufacturing its in-house 4680 cells at Kato Road, California for quite sometime. This new project aims to build Tesla’s largest battery cell factory. Tesla Semi production will also be ramped up. The all-electric semi truck is currently in low-volume production at Storey County facility near Giga Nevada.
Tesla’s Largest Cell Factory Will Be Based in Nevada, USA
Giga Nevada is capable of producing 35 GWh of battery cells annually, which is enough to manufacture around 500K electric vehicles per year. But that is way less, not even half of what Tesla needs to put into its EVs. Because of that, LG Chem and CATL, two major battery cell suppliers of Tesla, have been shipping billions of cells to Tesla factories every year.
Texas-based EV maker is finally taking this matter into its own hands. 4680 cell manufacturing process is still in the works before reaching perfection at Kato Road. The dry-coating technique that helps Tesla reduce manufacturing costs and the environmental impact of cell production is yet to be scaled up. But there is enough time to improve before starting mass production at the new factory near Giga Nevada.
The estimated capacity of this factory will be 100 GWh, a huge capacity to produce enough batteries for 2 million electric vehicles. Tesla also has plans to build separate battery cell factories in Texas and Berlin, as well. To learn more about Elon Musk’s future factory plans feel free to follow us on Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram.
