Tesla Gigafactory

[Sunflower]

️

 

[MassModel3]

️

????

 

[Dynastar]

????

Sunflower is the Yoko Ono of the forums I'm thinking.

 

[AdamEKM]

Some Gigafactory coverage from this week:
Tesla Gigafactory: New aerial pictures show progress and new expansions [Gallery]
Tesla Gigafactory tour, remarks by Elon Musk and JB Straubel, and more [Live Updates]

This Is the Enormous Gigafactory, Where Tesla Will Build Its Future
Inside Tesla's gigantic Gigafactory - BBC News
A rare look inside Tesla's 'gigafactory'

 

[3s-a-charm]

Would have been nice to be a part of that intimate Q&A...!

 

[weak_pig]

When Elon talks about "price drop of battery to $100 per kilowatt hour", does it apply to Tesla EVs only or does it apply to all EVs in general? I'm thinking it probably refers to the former since batteries produced in GF is only meant for Tesla vehicles.

This also means that other car manufacturer's company would have to figure out other ways to bring their EV costing down since the batteries they produced will not be as cheap as Tesla (I think GF don't sell their batteries to other car companies for use).

 

[voyager]

If my question already popped up in this thread, I apologize... But I was wondering to what extent Tesla is willing to deliver batteries to other car brands. I'm asking this because other brands are contemplating setting up their own battery plants.... I'd say: rather go for economy of scale than car brands making each others life needlessly tough.

Jaguar Land Rover, Ford & BMW could open shared electric vehicle battery plant | Autocar

 

[wdolson]

When Elon talks about "price drop of battery to $100 per kilowatt hour", does it apply to Tesla EVs only or does it apply to all EVs in general? I'm thinking it probably refers to the former since batteries produced in GF is only meant for Tesla vehicles.

This also means that other car manufacturer's company would have to figure out other ways to bring their EV costing down since the batteries they produced will not be as cheap as Tesla (I think GF don't sell their batteries to other car companies for use).

Prices on Li-ion batteries have been dropping at around 2-5% a year for some time and both Elon and JB Straubel have said that it's not much year to year, but it adds up over longer periods. Li-ion batteries are now much cheaper than they were when Tesla built the Roadster.

Tesla's plan from the start with the GF has been to accelerate that curve and bring their price for batteries down as fast as possible. It may start a bit of a price war as other car makers will press their supplier (LG Chem in most cases) for cheaper prices, but Tesla was always primarily interested in securing a large, stable, and low priced source for batteries for the Model 3.

 

[wdolson]

If my question already popped up in this thread, I apologize... But I was wondering to what extent Tesla is willing to deliver batteries to other car brands. I'm asking this because other brands are contemplating setting up their own battery plants.... I'd say: rather go for economy of scale than car brands making each others life needlessly tough.

Jaguar Land Rover, Ford & BMW could open shared electric vehicle battery plant | Autocar

If they had any extra they might be willing to sell them, but I strongly doubt they will have any extras. Between the stationary storage business and the demand for their cars, I doubt they will have any left over and might have a shortfall.

 

[WarpedOne]

But I was wondering to what extent Tesla is willing to deliver batteries to other car brands.

Every cell that cannot be sold in a Tesla Car, Tesla Truck, Tesla Pickup, Tesla PowerWall nor Tesla PowerPack, will be sold in a nonTesla product.

I don't want Tesla to sell less EVs just because there is some third party car maker that wants to sell an EV.
Battery is new ICE engine. Car-makers that don't make their own engines are not 'real car makers'. Same with EVs... real EV makers will make their own batteries.

 

[DrGuest]

A Tesla Gigafactory is a Tesla Product that can be duplicated and sold to meet OEM's needs, making This Gigafactory #1, one of at least 200.

 

[DrGuest]

I'm in Elko on my way to the Gigafactory Event, my First, of 200! as a +1 of a dear friend.

 

[N5329K]

I'm in Elko on my way to the Gigafactory Event, my First, of 200! as a +1 of a dear friend.

Don't miss the Star Hotel; the best Basque restaurant just about anywhere.
Robin

 

[DrGuest]

Don't miss the Star Hotel; the best Basque restaurant just about anywhere.
Robin

I'll check it out, however I'm at Dos Amigos with Live Mexically Blues!

 

[googlepeakoil]

Sorry, I have to resist the urge to throw up when I read that anything written by Hawkins is "state of the art" since he is the author of:

Hawkins, T. R., Singh, B., Majeau-Bettez, G. and Strømman, A. H. (2013), Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Electric Vehicles. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 17: 53–64. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x​

That paper can be best described as a hit piece with such huge errors that either he is incompetent or he's an industry shill. He did publish a corrigendum that corrected the most egregious error, but that doesn't even come close to fixing all the problems.

(2013), Corrigendum to: Hawkins, T. R., B. Singh, G. Majeau-Bettez, and A. H. Strømman. 2012. Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of conventional and electric vehicles. Journal of Industrial Ecology DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 17: 158–160. doi: 10.1111/jiec.12011
​

His paper was used by a slew of anti-EV advocates to attack the electric vehicle movement and Tesla in particular.

Note these parts from his paper:

"Although this study incorporates the cradle-to-gate portion of the battery inventories by Majeau-Bettez and colleagues (2011)..."​

"The cradle-to-gate battery production impacts estimated by Majeau-Bettez and colleagues (2011) (22 kg CO2-eq/kg) are substantially higher than the estimates by Notter and colleagues (2010) (6 kg CO2-eq/kg) or Samaras and Meisterling (2008) (9.6 kg CO2-eq/kg). These differences, which mostly stem from differing assumptions concerning manufacturing energy requirements and system boundaries, are indicative of the need for better public primary inventory data from the battery industry. "​

So, yes, of course Hawkins used the "substantially higher" Majeau-Bettez battery production estimates and ignores the others. He didn't even use the average of the 3 which would be almost half of his estimate.

At first glance, the chart that Fallenone posted from his meta-analysis paper does seem more in-line with reality, but since his meta-anaylsis includes his own and Majeau-Bettez research, it's still wrong. Very wrong. And he certainly didn't bother to correct the misconceptions of people that used his research to apply to Tesla. If he was truly competent, he would quickly draw the distinctions between his analysis and the very different Tesla/Panasonic production. He didn't and allowed a slew of hit pieces to misapply his research in in a very public way.

Lithium production is incredibly clean - take a look at the production photos of Orocobre's Argentinian plant here:
Salar de Olaroz
See section entitled "Environmental Footprint" - and uses solar energy (not solar electric) just plain evaporation to leave the lithium salt behind.
"It aims for 100% water recyclability - it is in a dry desert so getting water isn't that easy anyway. Compare that to something like the oil-sands in Canada where you have to boil oily sand to 600F using a third as much energy of gas as the oil you'll produce + a ridiculous amount of water - and that's open pit mining. That's 3mbopd (million barrels of oil per day) of the world's 88mbpod going mostly to American cars... stuff that should be left in the ground!!!
The nerve of the people that then claim electric cars are dirtier because they're a bit heavier and so their tyres might cause more tiny bits of rubber to fall off the tyre?! But the same people probably drive a 3 ton SUV that weighs more than a Tesla S (definately more than a Leaf), and more than a 3. They want substantial change they should be advocating sandals and public transport

 

[CaptainKirk]

I found a YouTube clip from I think a TMCer that allowed me to live vicariously through those lucky people who were able to go to the live event.

 

[gillfoto]

I found a YouTube clip from I think a TMCer that allowed me to live vicariously through those lucky people who were able to go to the live event.

Very well done a thorough video, exciting times ahead!

 

[Garlan Garner]

They should have designed the gigafactory to look like a battery pack.

 

[palmer_md]

They should have designed the gigafactory to look like a battery pack.

View attachment 189448

Maybe they did...for Model 3.

 

[Cobbler]

How high is the security/disaster prevention at the GF?
The entire Tesla future depends on GF1 at the moment.
A fire, earthquake, lightning strikes in, explosion of Li-ion cells or even an idiot that brings a bomb to the factory... Do they have special scanners, camera's, security guards, separate fire department,... in place?