Gigafactory Nevada (also known as Giga Nevada or Gigafactory 1)[6] is a lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle component factory in Storey County, Nevada, United States.[7][8][9] The facility, located east of Reno, is owned and operated by Tesla, Inc. The factory supplies battery packs and drivetrain components (including motors) for the company's electric vehicles, produces the Tesla Powerwall home energy storage device, and assembles the Tesla Semi.[10] It is the largest (by land area) and the first Tesla Gigafactory in the world. If fully built out, the building will have the largest footprint in the world.[11]
The facility is located at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) and employed around 7,000 people at the end of 2018,[3] with a goal of hiring thousands more with a total of nearly 10,000 statewide. The factory started limited production of the Tesla Powerwall home energy storage device in January 2016[12] using battery cells produced elsewhere and began mass production of cells in January 2017.[13] The grand opening event was held on July 29, 2016.[14]
The factory has been designed to become entirely energy self-reliant. Tesla intends to power the structure through a combination of on-site solar, wind and geo-thermal sources.[15] According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, one hundred factories like Giga Nevada would be necessary to transition the world to sustainable energy consumption without any increase in production density such as switching to a dry electrode coating process.[16]
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