First look inside Tesla's gigafactory

http://www.rgj.com/story/money/business/2016/03/18/get-sneek-peak-inside-teslas-reno-area-gigafactory/81978520/

by moadkid • 10 years ago

60 24 10 years ago

moadkid• 10 years ago

Imagine the Model S autosteering around the factory and showing you around :D ! The future is already here.

Theodores• 10 years ago

That wasn't much of a tour. That is a large box in the middle of nowhere with some people walking about, cheesy backing track added. Why do people bother with such piffle!

forgetsusername2• 10 years ago

Why do people bother with such piffle!

The Model 3 is to be unveiled at the end of the month, so Tesla is ramping up the buzz. It's their way of saying, 'See? Everything is on track!" I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 unveiling is just an image.

It's funny that people think the company spends no money on marketing. They're just good at modern marketing.

BinaryIdiot• 10 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if the Model 3 unveiling is just an image

Forget your "/s"? They're going to have a running Model 3 at the announcement.

fukusa• 10 years ago

30 potential trackers on a single page and even the video player is a tracker.

ChuckMcM2• 10 years ago

It is a newspaper, those things which so fear being killed by the web have become some of the worst actors on the web. Sad really. Definitely gives the privacy badger something to play with while visiting the site.

vc98mvco• 10 years ago

It looks like a typical factory.

Too• 10 years ago

More like a first look outside Tesla's gigafactory. With one or two photos of a generic shelf of boxes inside.

ChuckMcM2• 10 years ago

I think it was very smart of them to switch to a more modular plan. The original idea of just building it all at once seemed really crazy to me, not only would it lock down a bunch of capital, it takes time to develop the organizational skill to build stuff like this. Looking at Google's first data center and their later ones, so much learning in there.

The other question is how much was this "strategic threat" and how much actual plan. Something I still wonder about but if they actually start making batteries there it will answer that question too.

digler999• 10 years ago

Glad the newspaper photographers figured out how to cooperate with Tesla instead of trespassing and assaulting[1] them.

[1] http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/10/29/misdemeanor-charges...

mchahn• 10 years ago

There are two reasons for home batteries that I can think of. One is battery backup for power outages. How much market is there for that? It can't be large enough to justify Musk's humongous investment.

So that leaves the purpose of buffering solar energy collection. This dovetails with his cousin's Solar City outfit, which is growing like crazy.

I have a Solar City installation. I have no need for a battery because California makes my power company take excess juice I produce and give it back to me when I need it. The power company is effectively a big battery.

So batteries are only needed in states that don't make power companies do this. There has been a trend of states, like Nevada itself, taking back these laws. This is because it is considered a tax on homeowners who don't have solar.

Is Musk betting on the long-term demise of these laws?

abalone• 10 years ago

I'd agree that utilities ought to handle most of the energy storage problem, if only to realize economies of scale. But, two points:

1. Battery backup for homes could actually be a huge market. If you're looking at two homes, one is $500,000 and the other is $503,500 and outage-proof, which one would you buy? It's a nice feature at a relatively small price.

2. At the launch event Musk stressed the benefits of grid independence for the 3rd world. He drew an analogy with cell phones, where cell phone proliferation basically leapfrogged and obsoleted landline deployment. So in places where there is poor or no electrical grid they might jump straight to solar and batteries. (I don't know if he actually expects the 3rd world to be a significant customer base, but that's what he said.)

First look inside Tesla's gigafactory

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