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Tesla Gigafactory Investor Thread

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Looks like the building is up?

Some of it (from the article):

2014-10-02T051448Z_1_LYNXNPEA9103K_RTROPTP_2_USA-RENO-TESLA.JPG
 
Haven't been following this thread closely since the original pictures came out that the guy took showing the grading going on. But there is something that I just don't get, maybe someone here can explain it to me...

Tesla is presumably building one of the largest factories in the world to produce batteries. We know where it is. A guy climbed a hill and took pictures of it previously. There is literally billions of $$$ being invested by Tesla, it's partners, and smaller amounts by most likely everyone perusing this site. Everybody and his brother are flying drones and taking pictures and video from them. There are webcams streaming video of every big project under construction. And there are satellites that you can hire to take images of desired locations, and even a company that is planning on distributing satellite images for free of the entire Earth:
Planet Labs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Given all the above, I would expect this thread to be filled up with images of the giga-factory under construction. Why is that not the case? There is one picture from the area, and we don't even know whether it is the giga-factory or not :confused:.

RT
 
But there is something that I just don't get, maybe someone here can explain it to me...

[...]

Given all the above, I would expect this thread to be filled up with images of the giga-factory under construction. Why is that not the case? There is one picture from the area, and we don't even know whether it is the giga-factory or not :confused:.

RT

I would guess it is because we don't have the "boots on the ground" in that area as far as TMC enthusiasts. It is the same reason why some supercharger sites are well documented even going through some of the permitting battles and some supercharger sites we don't know about until Tesla tweets it is online (or the webpage just mysteriously gets updated to reflect it).

I assume that those who have taken pictures previously, it is a bit out of their way to really get anything good out there. If I lived in the area I would try to take a daily picture to do some kind of time-lapse thing, cause I think that would be really cool to document. I will send an email to Tesla asking if they have any plans to post updates, pictures, etc on the progress because inquiring minds would like to know, but I doubt we will get anything.
 
I found an interview report with Panasonic CEO when he visited China recently. The report is in Chinese and I paste the google translate link below:
https://translate.google.com/transl...817e25acc0caf2cd667fd401a2cfbf.html&edit-text=

Some highlights pasted below. It looks Panasonic very appreciates Elon Musk and Partner relationship with Tesla. More importantly Panasonic is very confident about the Gigafactory prospect and is willing to share the "controllable" risk with TM.
1) he admitted that he very much respect for their 14-year-old younger Tesla CEO elon · Musk (Elon Musk), in particular, appreciate the prospective partners and execution
2) Because Tesla positive attitude and action forward, many car manufacturers can not catch up. If Panasonic appear Musker such personnel with excellent execution, whether young or older, I will actively support and focus on training.
3) Panasonic will jointly Tesla battery super plant construction in the United States, a huge investment, why courage and Tesla bundle? How to prevent the risk of huge investments, particularly the risk of overcapacity?
CEO: About the battery super plant project, the production of electric cars Tesla, Panasonic considered to be very valuable new products, widely recognized by society, and not all traditional manufacturers can follow up with their scarcity I believe that Tesla will have broad space for development. According to estimates of sales, even super factory full production, to achieve full load operation, it is not sufficient to fully meet the market demand.
As for risk, focused on the future sustainability of innovation Tesla launch attractive new models, especially in accordance with the existing plan, the new success on the market. Even so, it must not be unworthy, do not worry there is a risk to invest, Tesla pure electric vehicles are now very obvious advantages, even in cooperation with other car manufacturers, there is similar risk
 
Tesla has made an application for the Nevada incentives and they released some details:

The application confirmed that the plant will employ 6,500 full-time employees but raised its average wage estimate to $26.16 per hour. Tesla expects to employ 300 workers during the first year of the project, growing that to 2,000 workers by the third year and 4,000 workers by the fifth year. Tesla plans to have 6,500 employees by its eighth year. Initial projections had the gigafactory being fully operational by 2017.


Staffing for the battery plant will include:
• 4,550 production associates paid $22.79 per hour
• 200 material handlers paid $22.79 per hour
• 460 equipment technicians paid $27.88 per hour
• 360 quality technicians paid $27.88 per hour
• 930 engineers and senior staff paid $41.83 per hour.
Wages paid by Tesla for the gigafactory will total $353.6 million per year at full employment The figure does not include construction employment.



Tesla also provided a more detailed breakdown of the $5 billion in capital investments it will make on the facility through 2028. The cost for the building and site infrastructure will be $1.1 billion. Machinery and equipment will account for the remaining $3.9 billion, including materials processing and product assembly.



Source:

Tesla details employment, investment plans for Gigafactory
 
Tesla has made an application for the Nevada incentives and they released some details:

The application confirmed that the plant will employ 6,500 full-time employees but raised its average wage estimate to $26.16 per hour. Tesla expects to employ 300 workers during the first year of the project, growing that to 2,000 workers by the third year and 4,000 workers by the fifth year. Tesla plans to have 6,500 employees by its eighth year. Initial projections had the gigafactory being fully operational by 2017.


Staffing for the battery plant will include:
• 4,550 production associates paid $22.79 per hour
• 200 material handlers paid $22.79 per hour
• 460 equipment technicians paid $27.88 per hour
• 360 quality technicians paid $27.88 per hour
• 930 engineers and senior staff paid $41.83 per hour.
Wages paid by Tesla for the gigafactory will total $353.6 million per year at full employment The figure does not include construction employment.



Tesla also provided a more detailed breakdown of the $5 billion in capital investments it will make on the facility through 2028. The cost for the building and site infrastructure will be $1.1 billion. Machinery and equipment will account for the remaining $3.9 billion, including materials processing and product assembly.



Source:

Tesla details employment, investment plans for Gigafactory

This is very helpful information. The bulk of employees will be involved with daily production activities, so they will be hired as capacity comes on line. So the ramp up in head count should correspond to the ramp up in production. Of course, some allowance for training and onboarding should be made. As well some engineering and management staff will need to be brought on well in advance of capacity coming on line, maybe about 300 as seen in year 1. But basically it looks like production will ramp up roughly linearly over about 6 years from 2016 to 2022.

Thanks for posting this.
 
This is very helpful information. The bulk of employees will be involved with daily production activities, so they will be hired as capacity comes on line.
[...]
But basically it looks like production will ramp up roughly linearly over about 6 years from 2016 to 2022.

Am I reading this right if I based on this numbers conclude that the factory will "go online" and start to produce battery cells in the fall of 2016?

growing that to 2,000 workers by the third year
The figure does not include construction employment.

Guessing 1. year is about Sept. 2014 - Aug. 2015 and 3. year is about Sept. 2016 - Sept. 2017.


This gives hope that the Model 3 will be on the streets in early 2017 :D ... but also tells me that the ramp up of Model 3 production will be slower then I hoped for... Guessing ~100k in 2017?
 
Am I reading this right if I based on this numbers conclude that the factory will "go online" and start to produce battery cells in the fall of 2016?



Guessing 1. year is about Sept. 2014 - Aug. 2015 and 3. year is about Sept. 2016 - Sept. 2017.


This gives hope that the Model 3 will be on the streets in early 2017 :D ... but also tells me that the ramp up of Model 3 production will be slower then I hoped for... Guessing ~100k in 2017?

I don't know what you were hoping for, but 100k Model 3 in 2017 would be quite good! That would put their total production at something like 250k in 2017! So 60-70k in 2015, 125k in 2016 (just model S/X), and then 150k Model S/X and 100k Model 3 in 2017! This would be better than I was reasonably estimating if true :D

Because I was actually only assuming about half that amount of Model 3 in the first year and not getting a great ramp up until 2018/2019. Using that assumption I would put the 2018 numbers somewhere around 200k Model 3 and 2019 numbers hitting the cap of 350k.

Final point I would make is that those estimates are likely conservative estimates. They might have them hired much quicker than that.

- - - Updated - - -

Is there a tax incentive if teslas headquarters address is Nevada?

I have it on good authority that they are not moving out of Palo Alto any time soon.
 
I don't know what you were hoping for, but 100k Model 3 in 2017 would be quite good! That would put their total production at something like 250k in 2017! So 60-70k in 2015, 125k in 2016 (just model S/X), and then 150k Model S/X and 100k Model 3 in 2017! This would be better than I was reasonably estimating if true :D

Agree on the 2015 number, but I was thinking the Model S/X production would be hold at 100k in 2016 - the same rate as the line wold have at the start of 2016. From then on all development wold go on the Model 3 line(s) (and the GF). 100k S/X and 150k TM3 in 2017 (so we agree on the total here ;) ). But I see I must have been a bit to optimistic here... Seems like the number will be somewhere between our two guesses :)