Tesla has just announced a massive investment of 3.6 billion dollars to expand its gigafactory located in the State of Nevada. Objective: to accelerate the production of the Semi Truck and the 4680 batteries.
Currently, this Tesla factory focuses on the design of motors for the Model 3 and batteries.
Two new Tesla complexes
Two new complexes will be added to the factory already in place. One of them will be devoted to the production of 4680 batteries. Presented in 2020, these devices are more powerful and cheaper than other models of the electric car manufacturer. Nonetheless, Tesla has struggled to ramp up production at its factories in Fremont, California, and Austin, Texas. This is because the techniques for producing large cells have been difficult to make financially viable.
The second complex will specialize in the production of Semi Trucks, unveiled in 2017, but which has suffered significant delays. The first was not delivered before the end of 2022. This all-electric truck is highly anticipated and already counts among its customers Pepsi, UPS, Walmart, the food delivery company Sysco as well as the Anheuser-Busch brewery. .
The first Semi Trucks have a range of 800 kilometers, but Tesla has announced that a version capable of traveling 300 kilometers on a single charge will also be produced.
A turbulent time for Tesla
The expansion of the gigafactory will create nearly 3,000 jobs, which will be added to the 11,000 employees currently employed by the complex. As a reminder, the manufacturer has gigafactories in New York, Germany, China and Texas.
This investment comes at a very turbulent time for Tesla, which has been forced to drastically cut costs in order to attract new customers. In addition, Elon Musk is currently accused of misleading Tesla investors. The trial is taking place in San Francisco, and tweets dating from 2018 deemed misleading about a potential privatization of the company are in question.
Sources: Reuters, Digital Trends
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