Am I the only one that understands that GF1 is literally the second largest building in the world, full stop? We know from Elon that to achieve 105GWh of capacity in the second largest building in the world, Tesla is using new techniques for how to maximize the factory's space efficiency. That means that other factories that intend to compete on capacity need to use those same innovations, or else be a physically larger building.
Sure we frequently see articles about new battery factories - but their capacity is usually measured in MWh, not GWh. You can't build a factory large enough to compete with GF1 and do so silently - it takes a lot of land and serious dollars to come from somewhere. Building smaller saves on capital cost, but doesn't give nearly the same economies of scale, and so will make competing difficult.
LG doubling or tripling the plant that supplies the Bolt still leaves it able to supply less than 20% of the initial design capacity of the Model 3 line.
I concede that CATL is at least talking about playing the same game as Tesla. Whether or not they can successfully execute remains to be seen. Their current capacity is about 5% of GF1's planned output. In fairness to CATL, it still remains to be seen if Tesla can actually produce the advertised 105GWh at GF1 too, but GF1's funding is fully secure and as far as I can tell CATL needs the investment to show up still.
