Electric vehicle and clean energy enthusiast and expert Bob Tregilus, host of the truly excellent Plug In America Show, hosted me on his This Week In Energy podcast a couple of times. On one of them, we chatted about the Tesla Gigafactory, and Bob noted (before there were any official announcements) that he saw what seemed to be initial work by Tesla on a nearby site (he lives in Reno, Nevada). Of course, I encouraged him to go snoop around and take pictures. He did so, and was the first I saw to get strong on-the-ground clues showing that Tesla was going to build the Gigafactory in Nevada.
That’s the backstory. Speeding up to today, a couple of hours ago, Bob sent over an updated picture of the Gigafactory site. Construction is clearly well underway, and there are a lot of people working on the site. Here’s the pic (and a much larger version of it is here):
Tesla Gigafactory construction and progress. Image Credit: Bob Tregilus (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Exciting to see. Thanks to Bob for sharing this with us!
In case you haven’t followed the Gigafactory story, here are some key snippets of information that may interest you:
- Tesla stated in its 3rd-quarter financials call: “The Gigafactory is certainly needed for the Model 3, and the Gigafactory is going to take us two and a half to three years to build.” But it was actually ahead of schedule choosing the site and getting started.
- The Gigafactory may produce 20% more electricity than it needs via renewable energy sources.
- The deal for the land was concluded in October.
- Also in October, Panasonic created its own Gigafactory subsidiary.
- Here are some fun graphics showing in context how big the Gigafactory actually is.
- The hope is that the Gigafactory will get lithium-ion battery prices down to $100/kWh.
- Here’s an interesting infographic on the Gigafactory.
- Here’s the plan for the Tesla Gigafactory.
- The address of the Gigafactory is Electric Avenue.
Back to Bob: If you aren’t familiar with Bob’s and Plug In America’s Plug In America Show, I definitely encourage you to check it out. I just listened to one of the most recent episodes, an excellent one featuring well known EV advocate and expert Chelsea Sexton.
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