Originally published on EV Obsession.
The Tesla Gigafactory will reportedly start operations in 2016, rather than 2017 — a bit early. A Tesla official supposedly made such a statement in Japan on Friday.
The Gigafactory has been ahead of schedule at least since its site in Nevada was determined, but whether that would eventually translate into the Gigafactory being done ahead of schedule has always been questionable… and despite reports of the recent statement from a Tesla official, this is still very much questionable. I think almost everyone knows that construction projects often go over schedule and over budget, and there’s plenty of time for things to go wrong and Tesla to get behind schedule. Nonetheless, a statement that it will be done in 2016 sounds good!
According to Nikkei, “The plant’s launch will be accelerated to bring down production costs through economies of scale, said Kurt Kelty, who oversees battery technologies at Tesla.”
Based on the limited statements from Tesla CEO and Product Architect Elon Musk and crew in the recent quarterly conference call, it didn’t seem the Tesla Model 3 would be done early, however. So, Tesla will likely need some other revenue streams to support initial production and operations. As I reported just yesterday, Elon stated on the conference call that Tesla would be unveiling a home battery storage product in a month or two. Tesla is also bidding on grid storage projects, and will be producing a large number of Model S and Model X vehicles by 2016, so hopefully it won’t run into a supply glut before the Model 3 is ready.
All in all, everything seems to be falling into place as planned.
