Tesla (TSLA) has taken its first regulatory step to prepare for the production of its new 4680 battery cell in Texas.
When we revealed Tesla’s new 4680 battery cell ahead of the Battery Day last month, we first reported about Tesla’s plan to deploy battery cell manufacturing capacity at Gigafactory Texas in Austin.
Now we learn that Tesla has filed an air-quality permit application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in which the automaker included a provision for a “cell-manufacturing” facility (via Austin Business Journal):
The facility is proposing to operate a cell-manufacturing unit to produce the battery packs that are installed in the vehicle.
This is the first step for Tesla to be able to deploy battery manufacturing capacity at the new factory.
The filing doesn’t reveal the production capacity that Tesla plans to deploy at the location, but we know that the automaker is planning to produce Model Y, Model 3, Cybertruck, and Tesla Semi vehicles at the factory.
Once all those vehicle programs use the new battery cell, it will require a tremendous volume of battery cell production.
At the Battery Day event last month, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla plans to ramp up battery production to 10 GWh at Tesla’s pilot plant in Fremont within a year.
After that, they are aiming for 100 GWh by 2023 and 3,000 GWh by 2030.
Tesla has now started installing the foundation of the first building at the construction site based on the latest drone video by Jeff Roberts.
The first phase of construction is expected to be completed by the end of the year and they are going to starting installing equipment for production to start by next summer.
We recently learned that Tesla acquired more land in Austin around the current factory site.
The company could potentially use the space for a battery manufacturing facility if it isn’t integrated into the main structure, which is itself going to be giant.
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