Elon Musk pulls no punches when it comes to laying out his grand vision. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Musk said his ambition was to fundamentally change how the world consumes energy on a “terawatt scale,” adding, “the goal is complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world.” To do that, he’s gonna need a factory – a really, really big factory.
Built in Storey County, Nevada, and appropriately located near the city of Sparks, that world-changing factory is now under construction, with Tesla first breaking ground in June of last year. The company currently owns a mammoth plot of land, initially buying up 1,000 acres, followed by another 1,200 and 350 acres after that, making for more than 24 million square-feet total.
So then, what’s all that space going to be used for? Dubbed the “Gigafactory,” the $5 billion installation will reportedly be the biggest battery factory in the world.
Powered by renewables such as solar and wind, Tesla has stated an eventual goal of reaching net-zero energy consumption. The factory has a target annual battery production capacity of 35 gigawatt-hours (a gigawatt-hour is equivalent to one billion watts per hour, or a million kWh). That huge volume will hopefully drive down costs and put a significant dent in prices for new EVs. Tesla says it expects to reduce the per kWh cost of each battery pack by more than 30 percent.
The batteries will also be used in Tesla’s partnership with SolarCity, another Elon Musk company, as a means to store excess electricity created by SolarCity’s solar panel systems.
It’s reported that the first construction phase of the Gigafactory is now nearing completion. Once done, Tesla will begin moving in the manufacturing equipment.
Cell production is expected to begin in 2017, reaching full capacity by 2020. At full steam, the factory will make more lithium-ions annually than were produced worldwide in 2013.
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