TESLA to Plans to Build World’s Biggest Battery Factory!

"About 100 Workers Walk Out at Tesla Battery Plant Building Site"
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/100-workers-walk-tesla-battery-181914893.html

... to protest use of workers from other states, a union official said.

“Today’s activity stems from the local Carpenters Union protesting against one of the third-party construction contractors that Tesla is using,” the automaker said. “Their issue is not with how Tesla treats its workers.”
 
[youtube]TIh2PjqfXkQ[/youtube]
 
[youtube]bFYlEDrE3tc[/youtube]
 
Cranking out cells this week...

http://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/29/tesla-gigafactory-honestly-whats-big-deal/
 
Ykick said:
Cranking out cells this week...
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/29/tesla-gigafactory-honestly-whats-big-deal/

"Battery cell production starts in a few weeks." :wink: HOPEFULLY, cells as smaller batteries will be sold "for the rest of us".
 
"...officially opened this week..."
 
This is not really on topic but where will all the profit go?
 
wineboyrider said:
Skalabala said:
This is not really on topic but where will all the profit go?
Shareholders! Got your stock yet?

Well, assuming business can stay good long enough to pay off all the debt. But there's the danger that the technology will change quicker than any factory could transition, or even afford. Hence so many spectacular crash and burns of the former leaders. Any body remember a company called Kodak? IBM was once so huge they called it 'Big Blue.' I think the question is very on topic. And very uncomfortable.

I wonder how expensive it'll be to retrofit the Gigafactory to, say, https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=85297 . We just assume the equipment will be compatible. That the current workforce will be easily trained. Companies that jumped into Java too quickly individually had to reinvent the wheel over and over, paying development costs over and over that should have been paid once by whatever company brought them their incomplete Java. A part of the tech bust of 2000. Those who waited too long lost money too, but that's understandable, considering the financial commitment to their preJava technology.

Profits from the Gigafactory are not guaranteed. It's a normal discussion around here about the need for a better battery chemistry and the possibility it would be mnoths, weeks, even days away. What is the real danger to Elon in that?
 
Why would a battery factory want to make a pressure-sensitive, variable-resistance putty? It's not battery tech...

The Gigafactory won't become obsolete by some invention of a new battery in a lab somewhere. It's got to take 5-10 years to take a promising lab experiment to a viable commercial product. The Gigafactory will have paid for itself by then. Anyways, with that much investment going into it, you can be sure they'll be spending a good sum on R&D so don't be surprised if its a source or significant player rather than the victim of new battery tech.
 
Punx0r said:
Why would a battery factory want to make a pressure-sensitive, variable-resistance putty? It's not battery tech...

The Gigafactory won't become obsolete by some invention of a new battery in a lab somewhere. It's got to take 5-10 years to take a promising lab experiment to a viable commercial product. The Gigafactory will have paid for itself by then. Anyways, with that much investment going into it, you can be sure they'll be spending a good sum on R&D so don't be surprised if its a source or significant player rather than the victim of new battery tech.
LMFAO the Gigafactory is just a shell they can produce any new style or chemistry of battery that comes along inside the shell....

Therefor the Gigafactory will likely be open a long time!!!
 
Arlo1 said:
LMFAO the Gigafactory is just a shell they can produce any new style or chemistry of battery that comes along inside the shell....

Therefor the Gigafactory will likely be open a long time!!!

It's not just a shell. If the new manufacturing process is not compatible with the old one, will it be a small job to convert, or a big one? The question wasn't staying open, it was profitability. Not set in stone.
 
wineboyrider said:
Skalabala said:
This is not really on topic but where will all the profit go?
Shareholders! Got your stock yet?
With so many states/countries around the world putting in place more expensive electricity either from windfarms or special carbon emitting taxes or from RETs I was thinking that Trumps devotion to cheap simple electricity could actually be Teslas biggest gain that it never saw coming.

So many articles and news events about increasing electricity prices (around the world in general)
http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/power-bills-could-cost-an-extra-300-a-quarter-next-year/news-story/5615b570ef804c2eaa50913549dda440

With Germany one of the world leaders with expensive electricity from having so many wind turbines.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/

Originally when VW announced its massive electric vehicle manufacturing plant to be built in the USA I was thinking its probably due to Trumps powerful tariff threats but I am now thinking it was probably just as much because the USA will stay much longer than any other mass market economy with cheap electricity so EVs will naturally be far more viable and attractive to consumers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/vw-to-make-e-cars-in-north-america-in-post-crisis-recovery-push
 
How cheap is power that you trade the single life support system for your closed loop ecosystem to use?
 
liveforphysics said:
How cheap is power that you trade the single life support system for your closed loop ecosystem to use?

Warren said:
Luke,

You may as well save your breathe. Unfortunately, climate and energy have become matters of ideology/religion for many folks, on boths ends of the spectrum. If only reality cared what we think.

No no, he's got the right message, we just need a better line that people will readily understand. In Economics there's 'External Cost' which pollution is lumped into. But people wont understand in that language either.

Of course the line that'll work will piss off so many people around here because it'll be metaphorical yet active and deliver a punch as the message. In short it'll sound like ME! Of course they'll breathe easier, especially Mr. Physics when he knows he's breathing a line they're listening to, when the one sentence message can be delivered in a way the average person will actually understand.

So GM is taking a hit of $9k per Chevy Bolt to introduce it. The backhanded logic is this news of worldwide electricity could kill them. I just don't think it'll work out that way.
 
In 2017 we will see higher gas prices due to OPEC production cuts and inflation. It will make battery powered vehicles more attractive.
 
Dauntless said:
[So GM is taking a hit of $9k per Chevy Bolt to introduce it.

Bullshit. They claim this to look good and likely to write off wasted spending inside the company.

Non the less thats a $17,000 sonic they already have in production with a electric power train installed. They could claim a loss of 9k per item if they only sell like 50 and want to claim it cost 1.3 million to develop.... Or any random bogus number they want to claim but if they would put the price at a realistic number like 20k or something and try ACTUALLY TRY to sell them they could sell millions and be profitable in months.
 
Dauntless said:
Arlo1 said:
LMFAO the Gigafactory is just a shell they can produce any new style or chemistry of battery that comes along inside the shell....

Therefor the Gigafactory will likely be open a long time!!!

It's not just a shell. If the new manufacturing process is not compatible with the old one, will it be a small job to convert, or a big one? The question wasn't staying open, it was profitability. Not set in stone.
When up & running and near capacity, the gigafactory will be producing more than half of all lithium-ion batteries in the world. Hence, whatever format factors they want will become the industry standard. They need not take into account any existing standards.
lester12483 said:
In 2017 we will see higher gas prices due to OPEC production cuts and inflation. It will make battery powered vehicles more attractive.
That has and will always be the case influencing people's choices of energy for transportation, home and elsewhere. The primary reason for the demise of coal has not been ideology, climate or other, but ONLY cost. Fracked gas lowered the cost of natural gas below coal and hence all new plants and old plant retrofits started choosing gas. Its still "the economy, stupid".
 
Back
Top