Inside the Gigafactory That Will Decide Tesla’s Fate | Hacker News Reader

Inside the Gigafactory That Will Decide Tesla’s Fate

bloomberg.com

112 pointsvirtualwhys41 comments

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in this scale model, I think the part of the building marked with a black rectangle (upper left) is what is currently being built.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-inside-tesla-gigafac...

That is astounding if correct

The scale of it is mind boggling. Not that the end product really dictates the size of the production facility, but this place will be larger than where they build 747s and A380s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings_in_t...

Note that the Tesla car factory in Fremont and the Tesla Gigafactory in Reno are different.

Noted, but I was more looking at the size of the Boeing and Airbus facilities. (Hoping my math is right) At 5.8 million sq ft it should have a footprint of 540,000 m^2, which would top that list.

According to Wikipedia, "it is the world's largest building by physical area and the second-largest building by usable space, smaller than only the Boeing Everett Factory."

I really someone within the industry could tell us the secret source of Gigafactory. What EXACTLY is Tesla and Panasonic together doing that make battery cheaper possible?

All these battery are already heavy into bots and automation with laser thin margin. They are already large in their scale, although nowhere near as large as Gigafactory.

So how is it possible for company to squeeze even more efficiecy out of a well battled and automatize industry ?

Even more volume, but also not needing to drag them across the ocean. They get transported a few hundred miles instead of a few thousand.

Though, transporting across the ocean is virtually free, it's the changes of transport mode that cost.

You need less plastic to make one 64 ounce bottle than four 16 ounce bottles. You use one cap instead of four. And the overall surface area needed is less.

That's really all there is to volume production, except instead of bottles, it's machinery, deliveries, shipping containers, production lines, work shifts, etc.

Fewer machines per unit of product. Less surface area.

I read somewhere that a 2 liter soda bottle uses as much plastic as 20 ounce bottle, caps included on both, and the time and energy expenditure to actually manufacture then fill the bottle is the same on either.

This would be something specific to soda bottles, I would imagine: more (and thus more pressurized) CO2 gas will need thicker-walled bottles to hold it. I expect it's not true for other PET liquid containers, like for water/juice/etc.

That's not Tesla's plan. The Chevy Volt uses large custom made cells, but Tesla is using standard round Panasonic cells.

The economies of scale have nothing to do with the size of the finished cells. When I'm talking about containers, I'm talking about, like, the size of the conveyor belt taking in raw ore. Or the depth in meters of the pools used to do reactions.

That will imply Tesla will no longer be using the standard 18650 Cell mass produced around the world, and instead uses a new specific component made for Car Battery / Tesla Energy, Applying your theory it will be larger, uses less metal around the cell etc. I have no idea in cost associated with battery production, but if it was the same as your Soda example, it will likely means the less metal associated with the Battery Cell are significant cost saving.

>with capacity to produce 35 gigawatt-hours of battery cells and 50 gigawatt-hours of battery packs per year.

Edit: this post was a misunderstanding of the sentence. It's actually 35 GWh cells produced there, which are assembled, together with 15 GWh of external cells, into 50GWh of full battery packs.

Whoa I thought total capacity was only 35 GWh per year, not 85 GWh/year.

Massive amounts lithium ion batteries are even more feasible than I thought!

I think you're misunderstanding a bit.

The factory will produce 35 GWh in cells per year and also receive 15 GWh in cells shipped in from other suppliers like Panasonic. Thus it'll produce finished packs totaling 50 GWh / year.

In other words, total output of the factory is 50 GWh / year, 70% of which is vertically integrated.

Oh, yes I did misunderstand that! I thought the "batterypack" part was referring to the Powerpack product. Thanks for the clarification.

Not so much "inside" as an overview. But the scale of the place is pretty impressive.

I didn't realize of 15% of the building is done.That is crazy lol

I had seen a few photos of it before, but I don't think I had fully grasped the scale until looking at these photos. I was always like: yeah that is pretty big. Then I realize those small things in the corner are semi trailers. And only 15% is done? That is crazy.

The entire scene - a gigantic white cuboid shape delicately placed between mountains and desert - is science fiction brought to life.

And maybe one day they'll build one on Mars

well, the factory seems to be a leading prong of industrial sprawl into the wilderness there

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.5117825,-119.4610767,21248m/...

With the Gigafactory being probably an "anchor" business in that area, those mountains and desert may be changed soon.

What are all those other buildings around it that look just as big, if not bigger?

If you zoom in you can see their name. Couple of names I picked up, are ware houses and distribution centers for ebay, wallmart, petsmart to name a few. The reason Gigafactory doesnt look as impressive compare to others because only 15% of GF construction has been done so far (according to Bloomberg Article). So the completed structure will easily dwarf everything else in the vicinity.

If you look at the corners of the plot, you can see the short sides of the octagon that the completed building will eventually become.

Overlaid on the financial district of New York, for comparison: http://mapfrappe.com/?show=39101

Just saying - the canonical Edifice Complex gaffe was the Rouge River plant built by Henry Ford.

(your humble narrator worked at a startup taken down by the Edifice Complex ) .

"Outside" Giga factory

If this works (disclosure: I think it will, and I've put money on it) then it will become a highly visible target, both literally and figuratively. If I were in charge, I would even make contingency plans for air defense.

> it will become a highly visible target, both literally and figuratively. If I were in charge, I would even make contingency plans for air defense.

You think that someone with the capability to attack the mainland US from the air is going to attack a factory of a private company that makes batteries?

I'm betting that's not their first target.

It depends on how many get purchased for military applications. That and a large amount of Li-ion batteries going boom is quite a light show.

I'd imagine that many chemical plants and oil refineries have substantially worse failure modes.

I have no idea what measures are generally taken to safeguard them though. My understanding is that the greatest threats are accidents and fire, although it seems highly likely they will have contingency plans for various types of deliberate threats.

The military can run well on petrol.

I'm betting anyone with the ability to attack that has a lot to lose and better things to do.

I certainly don't think a 1st or 2nd tier military would attack the US. Since it's a literally highly visible target in the middle of nothing, a terrorist organization might want to crash a large jet into it.

"Highly visible target in the middle of nothing" -- for terrorists, this combination doesn't make sense. To strike fear into the general population, they want to hit somewhere with high population density.

Manhattan and downtown Paris are the kind of terrorist targets that create headlines. A Tesla factory in the desert could go up in smoke, but for most news outlets it would only merit a mention in the Economics section.

A Tesla factory in the desert could go up in smoke, but for most news outlets it would only merit a mention in the Economics section.

I rather think it would be front page news.

Biggest military power in the world by a large margin. Runs global unmanned drone operations that can kill anyone anywhere by executive order.

In a post 9-11 world I think the risks are minimal.

I would be more concerned about an industrial accident in a building that size. How much water would they have on hand for fire fighting in the middle of a desert?

In a post 9-11 world I think the risks are minimal.

You have a point. I was thinking precisely of a 9-11 style attack, but this is harder to pull off.

I would be more concerned about an industrial accident in a building that size. How much water would they have on hand for fire fighting in the middle of a desert?

However, the fact that firefighting would be challenging in such a remote location is a point of vulnerability for it as a terrorist target.

Please don't try to put out a Lithium fire with water.

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