Tesla Motors aims to finish building its massive $5 billion Gigafactory battery manufacturing plant years ahead of schedule in order to meet demand for its upcoming cheaper Tesla Model 3 sedan and provide power for new types of vehicles that are currently under development.
Recently, Tesla has doubled the number of construction workers building the battery plant located on a site more than 3,000 acres large, near Reno, Nevada. Currently, in an effort to start producing lithium-ion cells by late 2016, 1,000 construction workers are building on two shifts seven days a week.
Elon Musk has given reporters a first look of the Gigafactory on Tuesday, July 26. During the walk-through of the factory, JB Straubel, Tesla's chief technical officer and co-founder, said that, well ahead of vehicle production, the company strives to be ready with battery cell and pack production. For this reason, Tesla is accelerating its planned launch of cell production.
Tesla Motor's goal is to have the Gigafactory operational before launching of the $35,000 Model 3 sedan, scheduled for the next year. Tesla Model 3 will come with a price tag of about half the base price of the Model S.
Reservations for the Model 3 have been already opened by Tesla earlier this year. Due to the strong demand in the pre-orders phase, the automaker company has established a 500,000 sales a year target by 2018. USA Today reports that now Tesla officials have tripled the expected output from 500,000 to 1.5 million cars a year.
According to The Wall Street Journal, by the year 2020 Tesla plans that its Gigafactory plant will be capable of producing 105 gigawatt hours of battery cells.
Once the Gigafactory is fully operational in 2020, Musk has blogged that he expects it to be able to produce as many lithium-ion batteries as the overall world output in 2013. Such an accomplishment, if achieved, would give Tesla Motors a top position in a market currently dominated by Asian companies.
