Tesla unveils its Megafactory as battery production ramps up

Tesla has unveiled its Megafactory in California for the first time as part of a hiring effort as it ramps up battery production.

Last year, Tesla broke ground on a new “Megafactory” to produce Megapack batteries in Lathrop, California. The goal is to have a new factory focused only on building the large battery pack for utility-scale energy storage projects.

CEO Elon Musk revealed that Tesla aims for Megafactory to produce an impressive 40 GWh of Megapacks per year.

Despite working on the new manufacturing facility for about a year, we didn’t hear much about Tesla’s effort until last month when the automaker started to ramp up hiring.

Now Tesla has unveiled the Megafactory for the first time in a LinkedIn video as it promotes a new hiring effort at the factory:

The images shown in the video include footage of Megapack production inside the factory:

It’s impressive that Tesla managed to achieve production at the facility roughly a year after breaking ground.

Electrek heard from sources familiar with the matter that Tesla has been making great progress at the Megafactory. Tesla had previously been producing Megapacks exclusively at Gigafactory Nevada, but production is now ramping up fast at Megafactory in California with already the capacity to produce up to 25 Megapacks in a single day, according to sources.

However, the production capacity is fairly recent, and, therefore, the deployment won’t be felt until Q4 and into 2023, when Tesla can install the battery packs and the energy storage projects can be commissioned.

Electrek’s Take

Last week, Tesla reported a record quarter for energy storage deployment with 2.1 GWh deployed in a single quarter.

I don’t even know if Megafactory’s output had any impact on this record, but if it did, it was minimal.

In Q4 and deeper into 2023 is likely when we are going to start feeling the impact of the new factory’s output as the Megapacks get shipped, installed, and commissioned.

I think people should expect significant jumps in energy storage deployment at Tesla in the coming quarters.

Musk believes Tesla’s energy division can eventually rival Tesla’s auto business in scale. We won’t be anywhere near that with the output of the Megafactory, but it’s certainly an important step closer.

For comparison, there is as much as 50 times the Model Y’s battery energy capacity in a Megapack. So an output of 25 per day is equivalent to the batteries in more than 1,000 electric cars.

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