Tesla Motors‘ vision of a greener future is coming to Reno, Nevada, and if you’re not already blown away by the automaker’s plans, you will be.
The Telsa Gigafactory will be a net-zero energy plant with enough resources to produce 50 GWh of battery per year by 2020. Tesla is saying that’s enough for 500,000 cars. And all that business about being a “net-zero energy” facility? That means that the annual energy consumption for the Tesla Gigafactory will be roughly equal to the energy created on-site.
Yeah, that’s huge. The end-game is to streamline and ramp up battery production to reduce cost. Even 30 percent or more, based on past remarks from CEO Elon Musk. As can be expected in the case of large proposed facilities such as the Tesla Gigafactory, several states put in a bid (in the form of multi-million dollar tax breaks). The tax abatement details total $1.2 billion, and some will stay in effect for 20 years.
So why Nevada? Apparently, they didn’t offer Tesla the biggest tax break. Elon Musk described the state as a “get things done state,” but chances are that the selection of Reno as the Tesla Gigafactory site was related to several other factors as well – ease of delivery to and from the facility, probability of consistent sunlight for solar generators, and perhaps simply successful bidding on the part of Nevada’s government, to name a few.
Look for the Gigafactory to be operational by late 2016.
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