Nevada Construction Project Could Be Tesla/Panasonic Gigafactory

cartechboy (2660665) writes "Earlier in the week we heard that Tesla and Panasonic had reached an agreement to build the gigafactory together, and today that became official. Now it seems that things are farther along than anyone thought. In fact, construction of the plant might already be secretly underway in Nevada. This is of course interesting as Tesla hasn't officially announced where the gigafactory will be built. Something called Project Tiger is currently underway east of Reno, and there's a lot of construction workers, heavy equipment, and a heavily guarded fenced barrier around the site. The volume of dirt being moved is 140,000 cubic yards, which matches the gigafactory dimensions given earlier this year by Tesla. Is it possible that Tesla's actually building the gigafactory before even announcing its location? It seems so, yes."

Headline trifecta

[timeOday]

I was going to write something snarky about the silliness of getting excited about this one factory, of all things. But it really does hit all the right points, doesn't it: (1) the manufacturing industry in the US, (2) the geopolitics of our oil addiction and resulting involvement in the middle east, and (3) environmental harm from fossil fuels.

Morgan Stanley is excited [qz.com] about the potential use of gigafactory batteries for home energy storage and grid independence, and thinks they might make more on that than on cars. (I would have thought good old lead acid car batteries were cheaper for this?)

If they're smart, they're avoiding NIMBY

[magarity]

For every person who wants the factory built nearby for the economic impact, there's a certain ratio of people who don't want it built nearby for whatever reason; traffic, worries about industrial accidents, whatever. So if they're smart, yes, they're already way too far along building to get it stopped by protests.

Re:Headline trifecta

[mean pun]

I have long suspected that Elon Musk is trying to provoke other companies into competing with him, exactly because he thinks that what he is doing is important beyond just making some money.

Re:Headline trifecta

[halltk1983]

You can't use car batteries in your home. They make toxic fumes. You'd have to use marine-quality sealed batteries. And at the scale for your home, you're talking real money, usually around $5000-7500 in just batteries. They're heavy, bulky and take up a lot of room. Just think of putting 20-30 car batteries in your home. Plus you'll need to replace all of them every 3 years or so. If they can make a battery pack for $10,000 that's a fifth the size, lasts 10-15 years, and comes warrantied for use in specifically that method... that's a really big win.