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Tesla reveals $5 billion Gigafactory, the world's largest battery plant
recode.net ^ | 02/26/2014 | Justin Hyde

Posted on 02/26/2014 8:56:24 PM PST by ckilmer

Tesla reveals $5 billion Gigafactory, the world's largest battery plant

Justin Hyde
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Tesla Motors
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Tesla Motors

No automaker has quite the momentum that Tesla Motors enjoys today. It sells every car it builds easily, with customers queuing around the globe. It's considered the best car for sale in America by several critics, and Wall Street has bought into Elon Musk's vision with a fervor rarely seen outside riverside baptisms. And yet everything Tesla stands for today and wants to accomplish in the future rides on a single stubborn, expensive piece of technology — the battery. 

Today, Tesla revealed its grand plan for tackling that weak spot, a $5 billion plan to build the world's largest battery plant, dubbed the Gigafactory — one that would power the company from start-up to an auto industry player with 500,000 vehicle sales a year.

Even with all the attention it's received to date, Elon Musk's firm remains a small timer as far asglobal automaking goes. Tesla plans to build 35,000 Model S sedans from its California factory this year; Ford typically builds that many F-Series pickups in about 20 days. All of those cars will rely on lithium-ion battery cells shipped from Asia, where Panasonic and other suppliers control most of the world's supply. While researchers have spent decades hunting for better ways of storing electrical energy, none has emerged as an alternative — and at the moment, there's no technology on the horizon that's better or cheaper.

The price of those cells has been the major reason the Tesla Model S and all other electric cars cost far more than gasoline-powered ones. A few automakers have built their own battery plants in the hopes of driving down costs and ensuring supplies, with Nissan's $300 million Tennessee plant the largest in the United States to date. But none have been built to the scale Tesla would need to supply hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year; the company already uses a third of all electric vehicle battery production.

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In its outline, Tesla says by the time the plant goes online in 2017, the plant to lower its battery costs by 30 percent — which coincides with its plan to launch a third "affordable" all-electric model for roughly $45,000. Three years later, Tesla expects the Gigafactory would produce enough batteries for Tesla to bolt into 500,000 vehicles a year, more lithium-ion battery power than the rest of the world built last year.

The cost for doing so: roughly $5 billion, with Tesla providing up to $2 billion and current battery supplier Panasonic and other partners providing the rest. Tesla says it has narrowed the potential sites for the plant and its 6,500 jobs to four states: Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The company also said today it would raise $1.6 billion to help pay for the plant and developing new models.

When Tesla launched, many executives and critics questioned whether it could ever survive building expensive vehicles limited by battery range and recharging times. If Tesla can open its Gigafactory as planned, and meet the goals it's set, those critics will finally have their answer.


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: automakers; battery; efv; elon; elonmusk; energy; gigafactory; panasonic; solarcity; tesla
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To: re_nortex

“its plan to launch a third “affordable” all-electric model for roughly $45,000.”........

“Affordable”? Sounds like a union shop to me. Dump all ties to the union and the price will drop to half that cost.


61 posted on 02/27/2014 3:56:53 AM PST by DaveA37
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To: dragnet2
Not so fast... Tesla is still receiving copious $$$ in the form of carbon credits from other marques selling in CA and other greeny states. Reference.

Government subsidy? You decide.

62 posted on 02/27/2014 4:02:05 AM PST by Riflema
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To: DB

Beat me to it. The carbon credit numbers are very large.


63 posted on 02/27/2014 4:02:46 AM PST by Riflema
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To: mylife

How old did you say you are?


64 posted on 02/27/2014 4:03:02 AM PST by Fresh Wind (The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.)
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To: Progov

For now, anyway, Tesla is non-union.

The UAW is working hard to change that. They failed in TN, they might have a better chance in Kalifornia.


65 posted on 02/27/2014 4:10:57 AM PST by Fresh Wind (The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.)
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To: Jeff Chandler

...and Tesla will be “raping” Mother Earth to obtain the lithium, aluminum, etc to build the cars.

Add the fact more “raping” to build the power plants to generate the electricity to power the cars.

Do these idiots realize their own hypocrisy?

/rhetorical


66 posted on 02/27/2014 4:17:57 AM PST by newfreep (Breitbart sent me...)
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To: max americana

Really a steep price. In the Phil by the month we get to see even newer models of cheap ass mostly defective made in china E-Bikes most of which cost well over 300 dollars that promises to bring you at least 30K for every change. Good thing is a foreign corporation has set up shop in Batangas to produce a commercial version of you Tesla’s. Fact is the biggest problems faced by any corporation building and selling vehicles n the USA is the huge amount of court cases they will content with should some guy drive any car and find something to sue with. Take away all the safety features and or limit it to the bare minimum then you will see a drastic reduction in car costs. But this is a great project, imagine building a factory in the US when most american companies jumped to China as soon as they found out they are willing to earn a dollar a day.


67 posted on 02/27/2014 4:20:50 AM PST by arkitek4
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To: arkitek4

Tesla received Gov. handouts (which they repaid) but I thought that part of that contingency is that they had to develop a cheaper model car, and $45,000 is hardly cheap.


68 posted on 02/27/2014 4:27:42 AM PST by DAC21
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To: mylife
I aint seen one on the street.

I see at least one or two on the road every day here in Dallas. I have actually seen three in the space of an hour and a half, just driving on 114, 121, and 35E.

69 posted on 02/27/2014 6:16:59 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: newfreep

Who said anything about rape? Besides Jim Morrison?


70 posted on 02/27/2014 6:29:35 AM PST by Jeff Chandler (Obamacare: You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.)
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To: ckilmer

al qaeda runs on hate and evil as much as oil. they’re not going to go away anytime soon


71 posted on 02/27/2014 6:40:40 AM PST by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: Jonty30

You can turn garbage into hydrogen and other fuels. Solve two problems at once.

http://www.opb.org/news/blog/ecotrope/new-garbage-technologies/


72 posted on 02/27/2014 6:46:36 AM PST by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: Jeff Chandler

The leftwing enviro-terrorists/kooks have long preached humans have been raping their sacred Mother Earth goddess.

Pay attention....


73 posted on 02/27/2014 6:50:39 AM PST by newfreep (Breitbart sent me...)
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To: dragnet2
No automaker has quite the momentum that Tesla Motors enjoys today.

How much of that success is from scamming the taxpayers for subsidies?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/21/the-tesla-battery-swap-is-the-hoax-of-the-year/

74 posted on 02/27/2014 6:55:40 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: newfreep

Who give a flying faddoodle what leftwing enviro-terrorists/kooks have to say to each other except each other? I know I don’t.


75 posted on 02/27/2014 6:57:15 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: John Valentine

Evil succeeds when good men do nothing.


76 posted on 02/27/2014 7:58:13 AM PST by newfreep (Breitbart sent me...)
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To: ckilmer

If it ever caught fire the toxic smoke would be devastating, the water tables would be ruined and the cleanup on a scale like Chernobyl.


77 posted on 02/27/2014 8:03:39 AM PST by Spartan302
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To: ckilmer

I assume the lithium and neodymium mines will have the treehugger stamp of approval.


78 posted on 02/27/2014 8:51:11 AM PST by Organic Panic
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To: Organic Panic

All their earthmoving equipment will have to run on ethanol, LOL.


79 posted on 02/27/2014 8:53:49 AM PST by nascarnation (I'm hiring Jack Palladino to investigate Baraq's golf scores.)
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To: newfreep

LOL!!! I have been doing things all my life!


80 posted on 02/27/2014 9:19:12 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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