Tesla Plans $5 Billion Battery Factory for Mass-Market Electric Car

This is pretty much the greatest thing I have seen in a while.

The ambition of Tesla is rather stunning - the young car company is not only taking on established giants like GM, Ford, and Toyota who have been designing cars for about a century, but are doing it with different technology that is innately uses far less fossil fuels than equivalent cars with an internal combustion engine - meaning less environmental degradation and less fossil fuel imports. And they have been doing extremely well recently.

The approach of Tesla has been to start with high-end, high-margin vehicles like the Tesla Roadster, and work toward lower-margin higher volume products like the Model S as the technology improves and as Tesla gains funding and experience building electric cars. The next step will apparently be a $35,000 electric sedan for the masses, however the cost of the batteries must be reduced, and the batteries must be able to be supplied in great enough volumes.

Tesla Plans $5 Billion Battery Factory for Mass-Market Electric Car


Tesla Motors said on Wednesday that it planned to invest about $2 billion in a large-scale factory to produce cheaper batteries for a mass-market electric car within three years.

The company, which makes all-electric luxury sedans, indicated that it would build the factory in the American Southwest, without specifying where. Nor would it name its partners, whom it said would invest up to another $3 billion in the factory through 2020.

Tesla said the factory would allow it to develop and cut the costs of its batteries for its vehicles more quickly, in part by producing finished batteries from metal ore instead of from components. Sales of its Model S sedan, which costs $70,000 and higher, have been constrained by a battery shortage, the company has said.

Analysts said that Tesla needs more batteries if it is to make its third-generation vehicle, an electric sedan that will be sold for less than $40,000. Panasonic currently makes batteries for the Model S.

..

The automaker expects to reduce the per-kilowatt cost of its battery packs by more than 30 percent by the end of the first year of volume production for its third-generation electric vehicle. At full production, the factory, known as the Gigafactory, would produce about 500,000 lithium-ion batteries annually by 2020, more than suppliers worldwide produced last year.

Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are among the states Tesla said it was considering for the factory. The finished batteries would be shipped to Tesla’s assembly plant in Fremont, Calif.

The factory will cover 500 to 1,000 acres and employ up to 6,500 workers, the company said.

www.nytimes.com...

2020 Tesla Vehicle Volume 500,000/yr
2020 Gigafactory Pack Output 50 GWh/yr

www.teslamotors.com...

www.teslamotors.com...

For reference, Tesla made about 25,000 cars last year.

Further Reading (and watching)

35 Reasons Elon Musk Is The Most Badass CEO In America

2012/2013 Tesla Model S 85kWh Performance Start Up, Drive, and In Depth Review

Tesla repays federal loan nearly 10 years early

reply to post by C0bzz


Firstly, 3 stars and 3 flags and yet nobody has commented yet as of this post? OK.

I thought that there would have been members jumping all over this, considering it's implications regarding a future free of oil and the Worlds dependence on it, particularly the futurists and the environmentalists, discussion could have been abound!!!.
I thought that the NWO or NTPB (whatever that means, I see it all over this site, it's like a catch cry, or is it the PNTPB?? I don't know) members would have been all over this to condemn it as a simple money grab and that the venture will be run into the ground because; oil companies would not allow it or kill the people that oversee the project and raid it's offices (but we would never have seen it, right?).
I hope that there are fully reliable and sustainable electric cars in the future, we all do..right?

But, because this is from the New York Times..... There has been no comment.

I highly doubt, this..ATS is not a exploration of/or contemplation or discussion of new ideas or radical discovery, it relies on speculation and hyperbole.
It saddens me that others disregard fact and entertain fiction/speculation, if this thread was titled "Tesla scientist; develops free energy; dead...500 Billion spent, missing" or "Tesla batteries ...for ever charged; scientist speaks" or another overly hyped subject heading...
Flags would be flying everywhere.

ATS does what it does... and the users say what they want to say.

Question: How many Lithium-Ion batteries did the factory produce the year before?

At full production, the factory, known as the Gigafactory (lol), would produce about 500,000 lithium-ion batteries annually by 2020, more than suppliers worldwide produced last year.

i have a suspicion that Johnson Controls Inc (NYSE; JCI)
might be another 'partner' in the battery fabrication business for the Tesla Line of Electric Vehicles (EV)


glad i got a few JCI stocks... as the build out for battery pack module exchange sites with a national infrastructure presence will be a fundamental change for the better for the economy

End of the wicked system of things.
out woth the old in with the new.

reply to post by C0bzz



Now, THIS is what you call an electric car:-

www.lightningcarcompany.co.uk...

Oops....seems like they have too many glitches. Wonder what they are?

UPDATE: Bob Tregilus, who broke the story of the Nevada site, believes that while ground was broken, work has ceased at the site as Tesla and Panasonic have selected another location. The post below contains minor updates to that effect and, of course, we’ll bring you whatever Tesla announces this week as we learn more.
All In? Tesla, Panasonic Could Announce Gigafactory Deal This Week

www.forbes.com...

a reply to: C0bzz

I might go off on a tangent here so forgive me. I dont know very much about Tesla, but I am quite sure there are technologies that have been developed (or found) and suppressed. Elon musk is clearly a genuis, but wouldnt he be aware that this is the case (suppressed tech and energy systems) and that he is just creating d grade technology within the boundaries that the powers that be allow him? How could that be gratifying for him (aside from the billions)? I mean his space x project would look like someone building a horse and card compared to the "ferrari" being built by the black budget projects. He would know that, surely? Or would he not? If he got to close to building tech they didnt want released, wouldn't they have just told him the parameters and what he could work on? Or perhaps im just a "conspiracy theorist" with a vivid imagination? Ref: secret space program