Will The Tesla Gigafactory Turn On Early?
February 21st, 2015 by Zachary Shahan
Update: If you’re not familiar with it, familiarize yourself with Hofstadter’s law.
It’s no secret — Tesla doesn’t have a history of hitting its timelines. It’s also no secret that construction projects often run behind schedule. So, it would be quite idealistic to think Tesla would finish its (first) Gigafactory on time, let alone ahead of schedule. However, a Tesla official has reportedly said that it will be done ahead of time and operations will actually begin in 2016. Wow! That would be awesome. But let’s also remember that only about $53 million of the projected $5 billion that is going into this factory seems to have been spent to date… so, we’re still at the early stages, and there’s a lot of room for things to go wrong. Nonetheless, my hopes have been raised. Here are some more deets from an EV Obsession repost.
The Tesla Gigafactory will reportedly start operations in 2016, rather than 2017 — a bit early. A Tesla official supposedly made such a statement in Japan on Friday.
The Gigafactory has been ahead of schedule at least since its site in Nevada was determined, but whether that would eventually translate into the Gigafactory being done ahead of schedule has always been questionable… and despite reports of the recent statement from a Tesla official, this is still very much questionable. I think almost everyone knows that construction projects often go over schedule and over budget, and there’s plenty of time for things to go wrong and Tesla to get behind schedule. Nonetheless, a statement that it will be done in 2016 sounds good!
According to Nikkei, “The plant’s launch will be accelerated to bring down production costs through economies of scale, said Kurt Kelty, who oversees battery technologies at Tesla.”
Based on the limited statements from Tesla CEO and Product Architect Elon Musk and crew in the recent quarterly conference call, it didn’t seem the Tesla Model 3 would be done early, however. So, Tesla will likely need some other revenue streams to support initial production and operations. As I reported just yesterday, Elon stated on the conference call that Tesla would be unveiling a home battery storage product in a month or two. Tesla is also bidding on grid storage projects, and will be producing a large number of Model S and Model X vehicles by 2016, so hopefully it won’t run into a supply glut before the Model 3 is ready.
All in all, everything seems to be falling into place as planned.
About the Author
Zachary Shahan Zach is tryin' to help society help itself (and other species). He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the president of Important Media and the director/founder of EV Obsession and Solar Love. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, and Canada. Zach has long-term investments in TSLA, FSLR, SPWR, SEDG, & ABB — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in these particular companies and feels like they are good cleantech companies to invest in. But he offers no professional investment advice and would rather not be responsible for you losing money, so don't jump to conclusions.
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