Telsa announced a new investment plan into its Reno Gigafactory in Nevada, where it hopes to produce a new type of batteries and Semi trucks in bulk.
More specifically, it’s talking about the 4680-type batteries that are much more efficient than what Tesla is using now for its vehicles. Also, it may have solved issues with the dry-coating technique of cells as it gears up for bulk production of heavy electric vehicles.
Mass Production of Semi Trucks
Expanding its volume of production and for new battery manufacturing, Telsa announced pumping a fresh $3.6 billion investment into its Gigafactory at Reno, Nevada. This is bigger than the factory’s initial investment of $3.5 billion made back in 2015.
Well, the new investment has its own plans, though, and will hire 3,000 additional workers – says Tesla in its blog post. It’ll build two new factories at the current Reno Gigafactory complex, with one taking care of the manufacturing of 4680-type batteries and the other mass-producing Tesla’s Semi trucks.
The company delivered the first batch of Semi trucks to Pepsi just last month and is working on more. As the new investment will definitely help it to scale up the production, it had always been struggling with scaling up manufacturing these.
And it’s probably due to the dry-coating technique of the battery. Though it didn’t say how it resolved this issue, the company noted the other new factory will produce enough 4680 batteries for 1.5 million light-duty vehicles every year.
The 4680-type batteries, to be specific, are named after their dimensions of 46mm by 80mm. These are cheaper but a high-capacity option to power its vehicles, says Telsa. Further, it’ll help the company slash its battery costs by half and ramp up production to sell over 20 million electric vehicles by 2030.
