Tesla’s sprawling battery manufacturing facility in Nevada, Gigafactory is slated for a grand opening on July 29th.
The factory is operational for quite some time now though at a fraction of its intended capacity. It won’t be fully operational by its opening date either but the EV manufacturer needs to showcase it does have the means, or at least on the way to it, to produce enough of what it has already set out to achieve – producing half a million electric cars annually by 2018.
For the record, Gigafactory is just about 12.5 percent complete. However, it is already producing the Powerpacks and Powerwalls that Tesla needs to power its growing fleet of EVs. The factory might reach full capacity by 2020. By then, it is projected to produce 35 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity annually. Or for a better perspective, that makes for more lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries the entire world built in 2013.
Coming back to the July 29 event, there have been no media invites sent out so far though VIPs and company loyalists are already set to grace the event, including customers excelled in Tesla’s Model S sales referral program, referring five buyers or more.
Tesla first hit the fast lane with the launch of Model S in 2012. After overcoming some initial manufacturing and quality issues, it was no looking back for the company that went on to achieve higher sales success with the subsequent Roadster and Model X variants. The Model X SUV with its trademark gull-wing doors has been an instant hit even though the same is priced around $117,000. Additionally, one of the most talked about features of Tesla cars is the ludicrous mode those come with, and which allows for near sports cars like performance bump or the production cars.
Tesla’s more recent Model 3 aims the budget segment, costs around $35,000. Gigafactory is anticipated to become] relevant as the economies of scale achieved with scale mass production of batteries is how Tesla hopes to keep Model 3 price within the reach of the masses. For comparison’s sake, the Model S is priced around $71,000.
