
Inside the Gigafactory That Will Decide Tesla’s Fate - virtualwhys
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-inside-tesla-gigafactory/
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dsfuoi
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...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-inside-tesla-
gigafactory/img/gigafactorymodel_danab.jpg)

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robbiep
That is astounding if correct

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bearcobra
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings_in_the_world#Largest_footprint)

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

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bearcobra
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.

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ksec
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 ?

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erikpukinskis
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.

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DiabloD3
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.

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derefr
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.

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epistasis
>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!

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danhak
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.

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

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

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Bedon292
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.

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

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trhway
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/...](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.5117825,-119.4610767,21248m/data=!3m1!1e3)

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

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

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leobakerhytch
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](http://mapfrappe.com/?show=39101)

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ArkyBeagle
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 )
.

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rathish_g
"Outside" Giga factory

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stcredzero
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.

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grecy
> _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.

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happycube
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.

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shabble
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.

