GigaNevada Pumping Production
Gigafactory Nevada is about to get some upgrades to its battery production facilities.
The facility - which is jointly run by Tesla and Japanese battery partner Panasonic - is currently where the bulk of Tesla’s North American supply of its ubiquitous 2170 cells are made.
And while Panasonic announced in July that it would be building a dedicated battery production facility in Kansas to meet Tesla’s growing supply demands, that factory won’t be operational until 2024 at least.
So, the focus is now turning to GigaNevada to cover that gap. Panasonic is reportedly sending production supervisors from their Japanese facilities to oversee tome efficiency measures. The factory won’t be getting a new production line, but Panasonic believes they can boost production by about 10% just from reducing bad equipment, and retraining employees.
The 10% bump would boost Nevada’s production to about 43 GWh per year, which is an important target to hit if the company wants to maintain the 2170 cell production needed to support CEO Elon Musk’s earlier claims made in the company’s Q2 2022 earnings call.
“It is worth emphasizing that we have enough 2170 cells to satisfy all vehicle production for the remainder of the year. So we’re not dependent on 4680. 4680 will be important next year, but it is not important for this year,”
Obviously Elon already knew about the plans for efficiency-boosting at the time, and it’s likely that this Nevada project is to shore up the numbers, as imports from other factories around the world do the heavy lifting.
10% increased production just from efficiency measures is impressive though, Tesla and Panasonic are really getting the most out of GigaNevada; although we’re sure they can’t wait for that shiny, new Panasonic battery plant to break ground.