Tesla opens Gigafactory to expand battery production

Tesla has opened its Gigafactory a little more than two years after starting construction on it.

The factory in the Nevada desert is set to the largest building in the world by footprint. If everything were to go according to plan, the factory will eventually churn out enough batteries to supply 150 gigawatt-hours of batteries per year, enough to power 1.5 million Model 3s Tesla cars. Tesla is looking to build 35GWh of batteries per year by 2018, equivalent to the power needed to drive 500,000 Model 3s cars.

The building, which Musk finds "quite romantic," would be large enough to cover 107 NFL football fields. It would be aligned north to south with two to four floors of factory floor and workspace layered on top.

"It's great," said Musk in a press conference with reporters at the Gigafactory yesterday. "It's like the Wild West."

The $5-billion factory could nearly double the world's production of lithium-ion batteries.

According to commentators, the factory was key to the future of Palo Alto-based Tesla. The 13-year-old electric car company, which had never made a full-year profit, looked to transition from a niche maker of luxury vehicles to a full-line maker of affordable cars, pickups and even semi-trucks. Tesla also operates Tesla Powerwall, a solar energy storage business for homes and businesses.

According to the company, making its own lithium-ion batteries at the scale the Gigafactory would allow it to reduce its battery costs by over a third by 2018. According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk the factory could easily employ 10,000 people in the next three to four years.

Most immediately, Tesla needed the batteries for its fourth car, the Model 3 sedan, which was scheduled to go on sale at the end of next year. Starting at around $35,000, the Model 3 would be Tesla's least expensive vehicle, partly due to battery cost reductions.