It's safe to say the
The $5 billion project is coming to life outside Reno, Nevada. It is set to produce battery packs for future Tesla cars as well as Tesla's new home and business batteries, which the company announced last month.
This past week, GLC Tech Videos posted a look at the construction site, which was shot via drone. Here's their ultra high definition video.
You can also see a version from
What can we tell about the gigafactory from the video?
1) Construction is moving quickly, at least for this section of the project. The roof is already on, and there seems to be a series of solar panels in one corner, or at least the racks that will hold them.
That would fit with Tesla's vow that the factory will run on renewable energy. The company is aiming for an accelerated time table. It initially was aiming for a 2017 start to production, but now it is planning to begin building the packs in 2016.
2) The gigafactory is far from finished. Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted.
This is not the full Gigafactory, it is just the pilot plant (1/4 size) https://t.co/gz2EmJkYtm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 19, 2015
In manufacturing terms, the pilot plant is the first section where initial testing will take place. No doubt Tesla wants to test out its concept before it ramps up the rest of the 10 million square foot gigafactory.
With so much at stake, it's far better to solve any glitches in a quarter-sized factory than risk problems once the massive plant is finished.
3) It's hard to get a sense of scale. The drone video was shot when workers were away, and the drone couldn't fly inside the structure. There's no way to judge whether any production equipment is inside yet.
But, if this much work has been done, it's likely that the construction crew knows where the equipment will be placed on the factory floor. I got inside the skeleton of the Toyota factory in Blue Springs, Miss., a couple of years before it opened. Even unfinished, it was still possible to tell where stamping equipment would go, and where the assembly line would be.
Eventually, the gigafactory is set to employ 6,500 people, and will be the largest processor of lithium-ion batteries in the world. So, what's happening outside Reno won't stay a secret that much longer.
