Tesla reveals their new billion-dollar MEGAfactory. This factory will be used to produce batteries for their electric cars. With this new factory, Tesla plans to increase the production of its cars and make them more affordable for the average consumer.
In today's article, Tesla's massive package is finally revealed, Powerwall keeps the lights on in Puerto Rico, Giga Berlin begins clearing the woods for its next expansion and Panasonic will build its 4680 battery production plant in Kansas starting in November.
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| Tesla Reveals New Billion Dollar MEGAfactory |
Megapack Factory Update
After just over a year of radio silence, Tesla has finally shown us a peek inside their mega pack production Mega Factory in Lathrop California.
The mega pack is Tesla's largest energy storage system designed for grid-scale energy projects these storage systems can regulate green energy generated by solar and wind installations and also be used to support conventional power grids during Peak usage times a mega pack installation the size of a Walmart parking lot can support a small City with electricity for hours on the 25th of October.
Tesla uploaded this video on their LinkedIn page which is the very first time we've seen anything from this facility since it broke ground in September of 2021. the video shows a complete and functioning production facility which is Quite a feat after just a year of course it's a promotional video and we don't have a lot of data on just how operational the mega we don't have a lot of data on just how operational the mega factory is.
- The 4680 production line looked like it was just flying spitting out battery cells by the thousands well two years later they're still struggling to get it right but sources are reporting that Tesla has the capacity to turn out 25 of the shipping container-sized mega pack units per day which would be very impressive if true for referencing a single mega pack in its four-hour configuration has a capacity of over 3870-kilowatt hours that's about the equivalent of 51 models wise with their 75-kilowatt hour battery pack.
- So putting out 25 megapixels is the equivalent of churning out over 1200 model-wise worth of energy storage not bad for a factory barely a year old up until now all Mega packs and Powerball units were produced at Tesla's Giga Nevada site but this meant the company was only able to produce about four gigawatt hours of energy storage products over the last year which is way behind Elon musk's aim for 40 gigawatt hours per year.
- So Tesla began ramping up hiring for their Mega Factory back in September with over 37 job openings appearing on their site around that time and as usual, this seems to have been part of the plan over just the last year.
- We've seen new mega-pack projects starting up or being planned in Hawaii Texas California New Mexico Nevada existing projects in Australia were also proving their worth and aside from the new facilities across the United States other countries were starting to take notice or in Slovenia's case start to expand the Eastern European country is part of a massive International Energy grid stretching from Turkey all the way to Norway this grid is completely interconnected to its neighbors.
- So any failure along this line would result in failures across the whole service but back in 2019, a local Energy company called Ngin began setting up little mega-pack hubs in an effort to decentralize the whole thing.
- The capacity to help that grid out kind of funny that the notoriously oil-filled Balkans will have significant battery support soon but this is what the mega pack is great for supporting existing grids and helping decentralize the load so a blackout doesn't leave everyone in the country dark it's why Southern Australia is doing so well after they got their system working with a virtual power plant program and why Hawaii was finally able to kick Coal Power thanks to large-scale mega pack deployment.
- The demand for these systems is really great and growing fast. Hence, the goal is to produce 40 megawatt hours per year out of the mega Factory in California Tesla could help set up two or three major battery Farm projects per year and free up valuable space at Giga Nevada for other projects combining that with power walls and solar for individual homes and that's a recipe for robust energy grids across the world we definitely want to see more from.
Powerwall Support Puerto Rico
This Mega Factory soon and speaking of Tesla energy stories from Power wall owners have been coming in since hurricane Fiona tore up the east coast in September many of those owners reported their systems were able to cover resulting power outages without much difficulty.
But the most impressive Stats come from Puerto Rico where over 44 000 homes were kept running for an average of five days during the blackouts back in 2017.
The island was hit by Hurricane Maria which wiped out the local power grid without much help from the US Puerto Rico turned to Tesla which is eager to prove its Energy Products could help in this exact situation it's been five years now and even though the island has been hit with more storms and their power grid is still having a rough time.
Tesla has kept pace in installing power walls now they cover about 44 000 homes which was extremely handy when hurricane Fiona tore through the Caribbean the shaky electrical grid went down fast but the reports are that Powerwall owners were able to keep their lights on for about five days on average many of the power walls in Puerto Rico are also connected to solar panels.
So some users were able to stay powered more consistently Puerto Rico is a great case study for the use of emergency Battery Systems there is no word on if the island is considering a virtual power plant like Australia and Hawaii but once this storm season is over the citizens there might look at these results and decide to network a bit and Tesla isn't the only Opera operator on the island which is a good thing.
The more people and companies see how useful battery storage systems are for creating decentralized power grids the better after all the storms aren't letting up anytime soon.
Berlin Clearing For Expansion
Tesla's next big expansion at their Berlin Giga factory the machines rolling into clear space for the next phase of gig labor lens expansion have cleared about 170 Acres of forest just a bit smaller than the original 220 Acres that were cleared when the original Factory broke ground.
In total Tesla owns over 740 acres of land which have been covered in a cultivated Pine Forest originally meant for cardboard production local environmental groups have been famously unhappy that such a large patch of trees was being destroyed but Tesla won their date in court and pledged to plant new trees to make up for the loss of the pine Plantation even though it was going to be cut down for cardboard anyway.
So with all the environmental concerns covered at least enough for the local Brandenburg government, Tesla is pushing ahead with this next major expansion the only question is what's going to be built there well we know Tesla is always looking to ramp up production and Giga Berlin recently grabbed permits for an expansion which includes a freight Depot train station a kindergarten and a bunch of logistics areas to support the increased production that's sure to be coming that's the best bet for what is going to be built in this 170-acre plot.
But we should also remember that Tesla is planning on starting and expanding battery production at Giga Berlin so that's also a contender and who knows if they stack everything efficiently maybe they could put all of that in this construction regardless tree clearing is a good sign that construction will be starting soon utilities and other underground infrastructure will be next and then we'll likely see the foundations being laid.
Tesla is getting pretty efficient at this by now so it shouldn't be more than a couple of months before we are breaking down the specifics of this new facility.
Panasonic Brings 4680 to Kansas
- Tesla is not the only one expanding battery partner Panasonic has announced that they will be breaking ground for their new North American facility in Kansas as soon as November of this year the Japanese company has been helping Tesla by supplying batteries through Giga Nevada but with Tesla and almost every other EV-capable company beginning a serious ramp-up in production next year, Panasonic is looking to establish itself in the market early back in July.
- The battery maker earmarked Kansas as a potential site for its large Factory and the initial plan is to produce about 30-Gigawatt hours of 4680 battery cells for Tesla once the plant fully ramps up by 2025 at the latest three years might seem like a lot of time but we can't all be as efficient at building new factories as Tesla and even though Tesla is making efforts to bring battery production in-house.
- They definitely need some support if their growth projections work out the way they expect the inflation reduction act seems to have spurred a bunch of new development in the green energy space as intended so it's likely Panasonic is hoping to show that they could support more than one company with this facility because Kansas wasn't the only spot Panasonic had looked at they reportedly were considering a site in Oklahoma as well.
- So if they can manage to secure contracts with more than just Tesla Panasonic would be in a strong position to break ground on another Factory and hey support for the swap to Green energy is great but this Factory is also projected to create about 4 000 new jobs so this is just good news all around.
What do you think about Tesla’s new factory? Do you think it will be good for the economy? Let us know in the comments below.