Tesla is investing $3.6 billion to expand its existing Nevada gigafactory. Corroborating White House reports from earlier today, the company said it will build two new manufacturing facilities in the state — a 100 gigawatt-hour battery cell factory and Tesla’s first major semi-truck factory.
The new factories occupy 4 million square feet of space and expand on Tesla’s existing gigafactory in Nevada, which houses Model 3 electric motors and battery packs, as well as Tesla’s Powerwall and Powerpack energy storage products. The facilities will be built east of Sparks in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center.
In December, Tesla finally unveiled the first production versions of its long-delayed electric Semi at an event at the company’s Sparks gigafactory, where the first Semis were handed over to Pepsi, Tesla’s first Semi customer. The new plant is expected to deliver a high volume of Semis.
The new cell factory will produce Tesla’s 4680-type cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells with the capacity to produce enough batteries for 2 million light vehicles per year, the company said.
The news comes a day before Tesla shares its Q4 and full-year 2022 earnings, in which Tesla is expected to address missed Q4 delivery estimates, the effects of price cuts on margins, and perhaps even claim CEO Elon Musk. distracted by his overhaul of social media company Twitter. Musk is also in the middle of a securities fraud lawsuit over his infamous 2018 “funding secured” tweet to take Tesla private, which ultimately didn’t happen.
Tesla’s latest capital raise in Nevada mirrors the $3.5 billion investment in its first gigafactory in Sparks in 2014. Since then, the company has invested a total of $6.2 billion in Nevada, building a 5.4 million square foot facility those 3.6 million drive units, 1.5 million battery packs and 7.3 billion battery cells, according to Tesla. The company said the new facilities will add 3,000 jobs to the region.
Tesla has not said when it plans to break ground on the new factories, nor when it expects to begin manufacturing cells and semi-finished products. It’s likely that the cells produced there will go directly to Semis, as Musk had previously said supply chain challenges and limited battery cell availability contributed to the truck’s multiple production delays. Musk had originally introduced a prototype Class 8 electric truck in 2017 and planned to start production in December 2019, but Tesla didn’t manage to produce Semis until October 2022.
