Tesla announces $3.6b Semi, 4680 battery factories in Nevada but questions abound

Tesla has officially announced its expected new battery and Semi factories in Northern Nevada, along with $3.6 billion in investment to make them happen. But are these actually new factories, or simply the completion of Gigafactory Nevada to its originally planned size?

Earlier today we reported on the Nevada Governor hinting at plans for Tesla’s new factory, which were expected to be officially unveiled today. Tesla has now put up a blog post describing its progress with its previous investments in Nevada and the plans for this new investment.

Tesla says that it has already spent $6.2 billion in Nevada and hired 11,000 employees, while creating 17,000 local construction jobs building out its Gigafactory there, and that the factory has produced:

• 7.3 billion battery cells (37 GWh+ annually)
• 1.5 million battery packs
• 3.6 million drive units
• 1 million energy modules (14 GWh+ total)

These numbers are higher than Tesla’s original 2014 plan, which was to spend $3.5 billion on a factory to produce 35 GWh of batteries annually, which would then hire 6,500 employees.

Since then, the EV market has expanded rapidly, which means 35GWh is still not enough to fulfill global demand for Tesla’s EVs.

Today, Tesla said:

We will be investing over $3.6 billion more to continue growing Gigafactory Nevada, adding 3,000 new team members and two new factories: a 100 GWh 4680 cell factory (with capacity to produce enough batteries for 2 million light duty vehicles annually), as well as our first high-volume Semi factory.

Tesla’s announcement is unclear about whether these factories will still be on the same property as its current gigafactory, which is still about 60% complete when comparing renders to the current status of the building.

Judging by the new render, these new factories may be in the same building. Compared to the existing building, which has an L-shape, and the original and new renders of the building, filling out that L-shape would complete the building to look more like the renders:

The announcement mentions that some of the $3.6 billion will be spent to continue growing the gigafactory, but also build two new factories. Previously, Electrek reported that Tesla was building a production line for the Tesla Semi in a new building near Gigafactory Nevada, so we’re not sure if it’s changing plans and will bring all this production under the same roof, or continue expanding that new building nearby, or perhaps both – maybe the 4680-format cells will be built in the main building, and Semi will be built in the secondary building.

This announcement comes the day before Tesla’s earnings report, which is certainly interesting timing. Tesla set a record for deliveries with 405,000 vehicles delivered in Q4 and 1.3 million in 2022, though the Q4 number came in under expectations. Near the end of the quarter, Tesla started offering discounts and has recently drastically cut prices, signaling that it needed to stoke demand a little after more than a year of significant price increases while EV demand skyrocketed.