Tesla Nearly Triples Land Surrounding Gigafactory, Could Expand Solar Power Generation
It was the furthest thing from being a secret that Tesla had major ambitions for its battery-producing "Gigafactory", located in Nevada, but as we can now see, we've yet to see the full extent of what the company has in store.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Tesla has tripled its land holdings over the past couple of months, giving it about 3,000 acres worth of desert to thrive on. Apparently, the purchase for the additional land was made at a time when the company's finances were strained from retooling a factory in California, but, to the company's favor, it recently secured credit lines of up to $750 million to help things get on track faster.
The same report says that Tesla isn't going to be building structures on most of this new land, but instead treat it as 'buffer land', which could ultimately lead to some enormous solar arrays. About 110 acres of this newly purchased land will be used for industrial purposes, but it's not yet known exactly how Tesla will be making use of it.
If all goes according to plan, Tesla's $5 billion operation in Nevada will be producing battery cells en masse towards the end of 2016. If things end up going well enough for the company down-the-road, it has the option to purchase several thousand more acres of land in the area - something we could very well see happen given the momentum behind the project.