GigaTexas Expansion
A new filing made in Texas has just uncovered details of the planned expansion of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin - a project that will reportedly get Tesla to make an investment of around $717 million.
Tesla hasn’t been quiet about their plans for expansion at GigaTexas - the company has previously said they plan on adding a battery manufacturing facility, more space for things like Cybertruck production, and the infrastructure to make that all run smoother.
In fact, this isn’t even the first permit Tesla has filed for this location.
Back in June 2022, Tesla applied for a new 500,000 square foot “General Assembly” area - which in architecture terms means a multi-purpose factory area. As that sort of zoning wouldn’t allow for things like battery construction, it was assumed at the time that this would likely be for the Cybertruck and expansion of the regular Models Y and 3 lines - basically an add-on facility to support some expected growth.
The new filing seems to reframe that original one - showing a change to the scope of work that Tesla is expecting from their Texas facility.
The expansion plans for an additional 1.4 MILLION square feet of space, spread over four buildings.
The largest of these is being called “Cell 1” for now, and is detailed to be 693,093 square feet, and cost about $368 million - the largest chunk of Tesla’s proposed investment. Given the size, it’s likely that this building is replacing the one previously detailed in the 2022 filings - it’s not impossible for both to be on the docket, but unlikely given the scale Tesla seems to be going for.
The second building is an $85 million facility called the “Drive Unit” - again, no other details but it’s not hard to guess that this 423,032 square-foot building will likely be for a production line that makes what it says on the tin.
Next up we finally get some confirmation on battery creations with the “Cathode” building. This building is probably referring to the already-under-construction cathode production facility that Tesla applied for back in February 2022, and broke ground on in August of that year. Having the filing show up in this batch likely indicates that some changes are being made to the blueprints - maybe some new connectivity with another building, a size change, or some below-ground work was needed.
And that actually brings us to the last building, being called “Cell Test Lab”. This is a much smaller building - only 2,560 square feet - and will cost Tesla $3.7 million. This coffee-shop-sized building is, again, likely exactly what it says. Labs don’t typically need a lot of space, but the specialised utilities likely boosted the cost a bit.
Like we said earlier, none of this overrides earlier filings like the one for the General Assembly building back in 2022 - a filing in December 2022 for a 174,878 square foot “Plastics” building is reportedly still in progress - but without knowing any more, it’s hard to think that Tesla could be making such a large investment of money and space and still be thinking of making a general-use building right now.
The construction for all of these buildings is - in typical Tesla fashion - due to begin inside of the next couple of weeks or so, and due to continue into 2024. That matches up with the ramp-up to production of the Cybertruck, batteries, and the other Models that Tesla talked about in their shareholder meetings last year, so these filings are likely to be the final ones before ground breaks.
The other thing filings are good for is cutting through ambiguity. It’s one thing to hear Tesla talking about their plans for GigaTexas expansions for the last couple of years, it’s another to see a legal notice that they’d like to break ground.
Filings can’t happen unless the buildings are designed, drafted, and a contractor has been hired to start construction - which is why it always seems so lighting quick when Tesla goes from filings to breaking ground in as little as a couple days.
It’s also good to get confirmation of Tesla moving battery production on site like they said they would. We know that they’re still planning on working with partners to help meet the demand for their new 4680 cell for instance - Panasonic is opening at least one new battery production facility in the states that’s due to break ground this year.
But CEO Elon Musk has always talked about weaning the company off of outside help if they can manage it, and this would be the first big step towards the sort of expansion that would allow that.
On top of all of that, production ramp-up of the Models 3 and Y, as well as getting Cybertruck production up and running this year required an expansion to the facility, so seeing these filings go through confirms that Tesla is trying to stay on the timeline they set during their last shareholder meeting.
One last bit of caution for eager Tesla fans: Filings aren’t set-in-stone. They can - and often do - change depending on if a company changes the scope of the building, the design, or runs across problems during construction.
So keep an eye on that build site, because over the next couple of weeks, activity there will tell us exactly what’s going on.