On the eve before publication of quarterly reports, companies prefer to make plans that will positively affect investors’ moods. Tesla may be guided by these considerations. It announced, just days before quarterly reports were released, that it would invest $3.6Billion in Nevada to increase production, increase production of traction battery production, and establish the assembly of semi-electric trucks.
You may recall that Tesla was the first Gigafactory Class enterprise to be built in 2014. This was with the support of Panasonic, who still serves as an investor. At that time, it was assumed that $3.5 billion would be spent on the construction of an enterprise in Nevada, capable of producing annually traction batteries with a total capacity of 35 GW‧h, while 6,500 jobs would be created at the same time. In reality, the enterprise has reached the production of batteries with a total capacity of 37 GW‧h annually with a staff of about 11,000 people and a total investment of $6.2 billion. Construction of the enterprise involved 17,000 more people.
The Nevada gigafactory was founded in 1999 and has since produced 7.3 million batteries cells, 1.5 million standard-issue batteries, 3.6 million electric vehicle powerplants, and 1 million stationary power storage units, with a combined capacity exceeding 14 GWh.
This week, an additional $3.6 billion was announced to grow Nevada’s traction battery industry and mass-assemble Tesla Semi trucks. These Semi trucks have only been manufactured here in small quantities since last quarter. Tesla says that Nevada will become the home of the first dedicated Semitruck assembly plant. They will also be assembled in Texas. It is unknown how this will be combined with the Tesla solution.
Tesla will expand its workforce in Nevada by 3,000 more people. The 4680 lithium battery plant can produce 100 GWh per year. This will be sufficient to supply two million electric cars with batteries each year. This decision has yet to impact Tesla’s Texas plans to increase production of 4680 battery.
It is unknown where the new facilities will be placed relative to the existing one. However, the computer sketch above shows that there is sufficient space adjacent to the existing L-shaped building to accommodate new production lines. This will allow the whole complex to be made into a parallelepiped that has beveled corners and solar panels mounted on the roof.