Batteries for 1.5 million EVs annually

Tesla has confirmed a $3.6 billion expansion to the Nevada battery “Gigafactory,” which the company claims will deliver more than a million electric vehicles annually.

The investment will create 3,000 new jobs and two new plants at the Sparks, Nevada location, Tesla said in a press release — with some more details confirmed as part of its quarterly financial call. of Tesla on Wednesday.

One plant will be the first large-scale plant to specialize in battery production for the Tesla Semi, while the other will produce 4680 format battery cells, enough to power 1.5 million light vehicles. annual.

Tesla Semi (Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.)

If Tesla can achieve that production capacity with its $3.6 billion investment, it will almost certainly be the most efficient battery plant project ever, considering about the amount of money spent compared to the output of the factory.

“If you look at the size of the Giga Nevada allotted to generate 100 gigawatt hours, that’s a fraction of the size that currently produces 35,” said Musk, who commented that the company is now adopting the box. Its advanced manufacturing tools for batteries. do.

Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn added: “The goals we set at Battery Day were to reduce the investment required to roll out cell production, which was our main focus and the team has done it well. work that achieves the goal in that focus”.

Tesla announces Gigafactory in 2014, with a plan to produce 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) annually by 2020, enough for 500,000 vehicles. The company said it invested $6.2 billion to build the current 5.4 million square foot factory. One Huge initial investment from Panasonic helped start the project, and the Japanese battery supplier is still involved as a technical partner.

Tesla Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada [CREDIT – YouTube user California Phantom]

To date, Tesla says the Nevada Gigafactory has produced 7.3 billion battery cells (or 37 GWh annually), 1.5 million battery packs, 3.6 million drive units, and one million storage modules. energy with a total capacity of 14 GWh. Tesla also launch on-site battery recycling at Gigafactory in 2019.

Meanwhile, Panasonic picked Kansas City last summer for what they have announced will be largest battery factory in the world—perhaps if you consider each part of the spectacularly vast Nevada Gigafactory separately. Panasonic later clarified that the “world’s largest” claim against the plant—which is the first battery plant in the United States outside of its partnership with Tesla—referred to an investment expected monetary investment.

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With additional reporting from Bengt Halvorson