It seems like practically anytime Elon Musk opens his mouth he says something newsworthy — speaking recently at the World Energy Innovation Forum in Fremont, California, he once again continued that trend (or perhaps blew it up?).
The statement in question, spoken in a very understated sort of way, was that there will need to be “hundreds” of Gigafactories, on the same scale as the one currently being developed, in order to meet the future needs of the industry.
Hmm. You certainly couldn’t claim that he isn’t ambitious. But I guess that we already knew that — he did start a company specifically because he wants to go to Mars before he dies, after all.
Bloomberg provides more:
Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk said the need for lower-cost batteries for autos and power storage means there will need to be hundreds of “gigafactories” like the one the carmaker is planning to build. The electric-car company based in Palo Alto, California, anticipates the battery factory will reduce the cost of lithium-ion cells by more than its initial guidance of 30%.
“I think we can probably do better than 30%,” stated Musk. With increasing demand for batteries, “there’s going to need to be lots of gigafactories. Just to supply auto demand you need 200 Gigafactories.”
While certainly an interesting comment, given the fact that construction on the first Gigafactory hasn’t even broken ground yet, the excitement will have to wait. 🙂
On that note, it’s looking increasingly likely that Tesla will begin development at at least two separate sites in order to ensure that the project is completed in a timely fashion — sort of a back-up, if you will. As far as where these sites will be, it still seems to be a bit of a toss-up.
Interestingly, Texas seems to come up in conversations on the topic a lot. And it does seem to have a lot going for it — an interesting geographical position, centrally located in the country, but also with access to major international shipping routes; relative proximity to Tesla’s other operations; a climate well suited to renewable energy development; and an increasingly EV friendly environment.
What do our readers think? Arizona? Nevada? Texas? A resurgent California?
My vote is Texas and California for the first two factories. I don’t think the other states can get an appealing offer together in time, and not for lack of trying. (I think of the three stooges running in circles and bumping into each other.)
It’s pretty clear FF and big auto are going to fight hard not to lose their high cost high profit cash harvesting machines. But I don’t think anybody with half a brain believes going to gas stations to fill up with expensive hydrogen sounds a lot smarter than simply filling with cheap electrons at work and in your sleep.