USA, Nevada: Tesla Expands Lithium-Ion Battery Production Facility

Tesla opens $5B car battery 'gigafactory' (CBC/Radio-Canada)

Location is strategically placed near sources of lithium in Nevada and Southern California that could be produced from geothermal brine.

(James Glover II/Reuters)

It's Tesla Motors' biggest bet yet: a massive, $5 billion factory in the Nevada desert that could nearly double the world's production of lithium-ion batteries.

Tesla officially opened its Gigafactory on Tuesday, a little more than two years after construction began. The factory is about 14 per cent complete, but when it's finished, it will be about 93 hectares (10 million square feet), or about the size of 262 NFL football fields. That will make it one of the largest buildings in the world.

The company says making its own lithium-ion batteries at the scale the Gigafactory will allow it to reduce its battery costs by more than a third by 2018.

Inside the factory, Tesla's partner, Panasonic Corp. — which has invested $1.6 billion US into the factory — is installing machines in sealed, humidity-controlled rooms that will start making battery cells before the end of this year.

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