New overhead flyover video of the Tesla/Panasonic Gigafactory construction site in Sparks, Nevada, has surfaced. The new video — which originates with a pilot who goes by the name of superOOk on the Tesla Motors subreddit — gives us an up-to-date look at the level of progress on the construction of the $5 billion project.
The video dates to November 7, when the pilot in question apparently took off from South Lake Tahoe airport with the intent of getting a closer look at Gigafactory 1 (this presumes that more gigafactories are coming soon, which they must be). The video speed has been increased by a factor of 10, in order to shorten the watch time for the over-80-mile flight.
The pilot states: “I recently had a chance to take a Cessna 172SP over to the Gigafactory 1 plant. This was shot with a GoPro III+ Silver and Nikon D3100. I’m not a professional photographer, just a pilot! Stopped at South Lake Tahoe (KTVL) airport for lunch, and then headed over to do a few orbits of the plant. Hope you enjoy! p.s. If you want to skip right to the flyover, it’s at 3:11.”
Teslarati provides more: “Gigafactory 1 has already begun producing batteries for Tesla’s residential and grid scale energy storage products — Powerwall 2 and Powerpack 2 — which the company debut(ed) at the recent unveiling of its newest Solar Roof product. Elon Musk indicated on a recent conference call with analysts that profits from energy storage products are already helping boost the company’s bottom line, citing Tesla would sell more battery storage products than automobiles.”
As Tesla CEO Musk has noted many times, if the electric vehicle and energy storage industries are going to grow to reach significant positions in the global economy, then there will be far more “gigafactories” needed than simply the one under construction in Nevada. Musk has himself noted that Tesla is working on plans for the development of gigafactories in Europe and Asia.
Wonder when they are going to start putting the solar panels on.