An Inside Look at the Tesla Gigafactory

An example of Tesla’s manufacturing innovation is its use of giant mechanical presses that can save substantial manufacturing time by forging single car bodies and individual car panels alongside its near-fully automated production with little human handling from beginning to end. Tesla’s different approach to auto manufacturing starts with single ... See more

Tesla has an in-house construction unit building out its factories. This enables a radically new and optimized manufacturing process. Historical analogy: Amazon built its own distribution centers to reinvent e -commerce logistics.

Tesla’s vision is simply batteries everywhere, for everything, all the time. And that means Tesla is going to need to produce a lot of batteries.

Since 2017, Tesla’s capital expenditure per incremental unit of capacity has improved from ~$84,000, when the Model 3 was ramping, to ~$7,700. While these improvements indicate that Tesla could continue to increase margins, the more important takeaway is that capital no longer is a bottleneck limiting its growth. Instead, Tesla should be able to gr... See more

So, in short, Master Plan, Part Deux is:

Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage

Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments

Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning

Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it

Few investors understand the enormous difficulty involved in switching from manufacturing ICE vehicles to EVs. Tesla has widely automated their vehicle manufacturing facilities, which has resulted in substantially higher operating profitability than its larger ICE vehicle competitors.