Tesla, Inc. announced via its official Twitter account yesterday that the automaker had already produced 1 million next-generation 4680 cells in January. Tesla also posted a picture of its employees celebrating this achievement outside the company’s new HQ located at Tesla Road, Austin, Texas.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was asked by our sincere follower Gail Alfar regarding the date for the opening celebrations of Gigafactory Texas. To which Musk first replied April 1st (referring to April Fool’s Day), but later on confirmed 7th April 2022 as the actual date for the party aka Giga Fest.
The Giga Fest tradition started when last year Tesla invited locals from Brandeburg, Germany to visit the Tesla factory, take a look at the development and opportunities the automaker is offering to the town. Elon Musk also impressed the crowd with his German-language capabilities.
Tesla started test production of the 4680 (46 mm wide x 80 mm length) cells back in 2020 at the newly constructed building known as the Magic Cube located at Kato Road, Fremont. Since this is a small building made as a pilot production facility and the rest of the Fremont factory was already occupied, Tesla was not able to scale production at this location.
The first 4680 cell production line was spotted at Giga Texas just before Christmas last year. Joe Tegtmeyer filmed around four 4680 cell production machines at Giga Texas during a drone flyover coverage of the factory.
Tesla is reportedly manufacturing 4680 cells at its Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada as well. Because the automaker has started limited production of the Tesla Semi class-8 electric trucks already, it needs more and more 4680 cells. Panasonic is also producing 4680 cells for Tesla to keep shortening the demand and supply gap.
The 4th location that has a dedicated Tesla 4680 cell manufacturing plant is Giga Berlin which will provide Europe-made Model Y with a constant battery supply.
According to Sandy Munro’s analysis, in a 74 kWh Model Y battery pack, there will be about 960 cells in total. So, dividing 1 million by 960 gives us around 1,041 Model Y cars. This is a very small number of cars considering the demand Tesla is currently facing. But the automaker will be scaling 4680 cell production exponentially in the coming weeks and months.
Giga Texas is not only producing 4680 cells, but it has also started production of Tesla Model Y SUVs. Local observer Joe Tegtmeyer saw about 100 Tesla Model Ys during his drone video shoot above Gigafactory Texas.
Reportedly, later on, Tesla even moved around 60 of them from the site, perhaps for the first lucky owners of Texas-made Model Ys.
Telsa Model Y electric SUVs manufactured at Giga Texas are different from the ones made at the Fremont factory. Texas-made Model Ys have the structural pack and the new 4680 cells while the ones made at Fremont do not.
It is not yet clear if all of these Model Y SUVs that we see in the picture above and video below are the Performance variants or Long Range AWD as well. Stay tuned as we will discover this soon and let you know. Post your thoughts in the comments section below.
Related: Plaid battery pack teardown by Sandy Munro — Model Y structural pack will be next-level, Elon Musk
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