The building of Tesla’s enormous lithium-ion battery gigafactory, as the media calls it, became immortalized on a set of images taken by photographer Matthew Roberts using his DJI Phantom 3 4K drone yesterday.
Tesla’s battery gigafactory might just be the company’s most ambitious project to date, and with good reason. More than a mass-producer of lithium-filled boxes, it is the realization of the Model 3 dream.
Tesla located the huge complex right outside of Sparks, Nevada, in the middle of the desert. Total cost for the company will be about $5 billion once it is finished, producing enough batteries for more than 500,000 vehicles (initially).
Tesla’s gigafactory will be ready in 2020
The plant, which will stretch through the desert in the equivalent of 107 NFL football fields, will produce 35 GWh of capacity each year. But not very soon, less than half of its 21 projected blocks have been completed so far.
However, after the estimated 2020 finish date, the factory will bring an economic boost for the area, creating more than 6,500 jobs and bringing more than $100 billion to the table.
2016 was an excellent year for Tesla Motors
The EV-maker tackled its most ambitious projects and managed to surprise more than once in the now finishing year. November’s closing of the SolarCity deal brought Elon Musk’s vision of an all-electric world closer to fruition.
The agreement also came only a month after Tesla unveiled its Solar Roof prototype photovoltaic panels for family homes, which lay the foundations for the Tesla ecosystem. A solar-powered house that also works to recharge the batteries of an electric-powered car.
The company also started testing a Model S modified vehicle as an emergency response patrol car for the Los Angeles Police Department.
Elon Musk is pushing the world to the future
The 45-year-old South African-born entrepreneur, who comes from a Canadian family that made a home out of the United States has seen the future and is not afraid of pursuing it.
After the election, he was quick to affirm that Trump’s policies would not hurt Tesla or his other projects in any possible way. 2016 was the year in which he teamed up with Microsoft to revamp his OpenAI project and also brought the SpaceX platform one step closer to Mars.
He is the first American entrepreneur that has dedicated solely to pursuing these types of ideas, which all point towards a more sustainable future and a different way of life.
He arguably single-handedly pushed the electric-car market into reality and made commercial outer-space flights a plausible effort.
Source: Engadget