Tesla wants to build 3 more 'gigafactories'

Tesla, the ambitious electric car company founded by Elon Musk is having a pretty good year. Vehicle orders are on the rise and the company anticipates delivering up to 50,000 cars by the end of May—an increase of 71 percent over last year. But all that big business requires big buildings.

Tesla is not only expanding the production capacity of its $5 billion, 10 million-square-foot Gigafactory 1, they’re also planning to construct another three mega-manufacturing sites. Avid Tesla fans will be familiar with the Gigafactory concept—massive, solar-powered and semi-automated facilities capable of producing enough lithium-ion batteries for hundreds of thousands of Tesla cars each year, in addition to solar panels, Powerwall units, and grid-level battery systems.

As Gigafactory 2, the solar-panel plant in Buffalo, New York, continues to rise, the locations of Gigafactories 3, 4, and 5 won’t be finalized until the end of the year, according to a fourth quarter letter to investors. Back in November, we reported that Musk was eyeing Europe as a likely location for his next futuristic manufacturing facility.

Meanwhile, the Nevada Gigafactory is already having an outsized effect on local real estate, driving a mini housing boom.

Via: The Verge, Inhabitat