As Giga Berlin Brandenburg waters their crushed gravel roads and has a single pile driver working to pin down a garden shed, let's put together some numbers. It has been said that Giga Shanghai will reach 4000 units per week in June. I've been told they are beyond 3000 units per week, right now. It would be fascinating to learn if this is with one line or two. If this is with a single line, 4000 units per week is a revelation. Either way, that is a rate of 200K units per year. Fremont was at roughly 450K units per year, in February. They have had a scheduled shutdown between then and now, which should have improved the capacity. I speculate they are at roughly 500K units per year. That's a total production capacity of about 700K units per year. I've recently learned that GA5 at Freemont is almost entirely manual. They are literally just bolting together parts by hand with only two hydraulic lifts in the entire shed. I don't know if GA6 will be a second structure, identical to GA5, or if it will be a more permanent structure with automation to upgrade GA5. Either way, I expect it to push Tesla past 750K annual capacity. I expect it to come online by this fall. Meanwhile, Chinese crews are sheeting the massive phase 2 roof in Shanghai faster than David Duke can erect an awning for his 20 year Grand Wizard reunion. The only statement I've heard from Tesla is that production will start 1Q20. That's difficult to imagine, given the volume of the structure. The one year plan is to have one line operational at Giga Brandenburg, I think four lines at Giga Shanghai, six lines at Fremont, and one line in Texas. This would easily push Tesla well beyond the 1M annual unit level. Another revelation from the last 24 hours of news cycle is that Panasonic cells from Giga Nevada have been going to Shanghai for MIC 3 production. Tesla has been using CATL, LG, and Panasonic batteries in the MIC 3. I suspect that Giga Shanghai is massively cell constrained. This would explain why Tesla has tapped Panasonic to expand their production capacity at Giga Nevada, despite a rocky history between the two companies. Panasonic's Tesla contract has been at 35GWh of cells since summer 2019. It seemed clear, Tesla was going to idle out that 7 year contract without further expansion. Right now, it's clear Tesla would buy cells out of the hatch of a Chevy bolt parked in Ford's Dearborn parking lot. It appears Tesla is significantly more cell constrained than they have ever been. Someone needs to send another round of Red Bull to the Hibar team. If you consider production rates 2 to 5 years out, at 50% expansion per year, it becomes clear the current cell cost is of little relevance compared to expanding the brand and bringing their own cell production online.
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A friend in Shanghai just stent me some pics from yesterday. They have more roofing going on than a university dorm on Memorial Day weekend. Those were bare frames last week and it was impressive how quickly the steel superstructure went up.
This isn't really news but there is a dock full of Tesla's and a boat waiting to take them to China, as of this morning at 9:30. Also, the plant in Lathrop is definitely in business. The parking lot is full and materials are coming and going. I suspect this is the casting shop.
The first two steel members at Giga Berlin were just lifted off the trucks a couple of hours ago. They have been placed on the ground where they appear to be resting comfortably. The talk has been that things are going to move quickly, very soon. That hasn't happened and isn't happening. Hopefully, it will but things are currently moving at a snail's pace.
The Chinese order rate for the model 3 has stabilized at about 500 units per day. March orders were way down, perhaps due to Covid and undoubtedly due to the qualification for a government subsidy starting April 1. At the start of April, there was a huge glut of orders but that seems to have quiesced and we are seeing about 500 orders per day. A couple of EV bloggers are still reporting orders of 1000 units per day for April, even after we have the real numbers. These situations are clarifying, as to who is objective and who is mindlessly parroting pro-Tesla propaganda.
I just learned, this steel isn't part of the building structure. It's part of a test jig which will be used to test soil condition. I apologize for the misinformation.
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The most awesome thing about Giga Shanghai is not the size of the structures they are building, which are dreadnought in scale, but that they keep starting new buildings. I count seven buildings under construction. The smallest of them is quite large. The largest is astonishing. Two more steel frames are now standing, since I posted the pic on Friday. This helps me understand how other countries used to look at American projects in awe. Skyscrapers, Hoover Dam, whatever. That's how I see China, now. China is the de facto industrial giant of the world.
There is a lot of digging going on at Giga Berlin, again. It appears they are lowering the grade by another 3 meters, or so. Meanwhile, at Giga Nevada, something is happening on the roof. It doesn't look like solar panels. Perhaps they have stripped back the white membrane but I'm looking at a pretty grainy satellite picture. There is talk of expanding Giga Nevada so I've been keeping an eye on it.
Just over a month ago, a record breaking solar cell efficiency was announced by the National Renewable Electric Lab (NREL). Another announcement from a team out of Berlin came at about the same time. Solar cell efficiency records are broken occasionally. It is always exciting and almost never practical. Like always, I read these breakthroughs and then moved on with my day. Now, however, it's starting to look like the six layer cell invented by NREL is going to be practical for *some* installations. This practicality comes from it's almost practical producibility. This cell has achieved roughly 40% efficiency under normal sunlight. Solar is currently the cheapest form of energy. I'm sharing this because recent CIGS (down at 20% efficiency but cheap as chips... previously, CIGS was closer to 11 or 12%), accompanied by breakthroughs in higher cost, higher efficiency, cells appear to be pushing in a new generation of lower cost solar. This is going to further increase demand on stationary energy storage and that's a clear win for Tesla. At some point, it will become viable and reasonable to have a 15 or 20KW solar array on the roof of an average house, a 50KWh battery, and no grid connection of any kind.
A quick note about my last post. Efficiency numbers are announced, all over the place. Some of those numbers matter. Others do not. I'm a bit over my head here but not terribly so. I try to figure out which processes are compatible with near term mass production techniques. Those are the efficiency numbers that matter. If we can change the CIGS formula a bit and gain 50% efficiency using the same mass production equipment, that is a big potential win. Not taken into account, by me, are thoughts like is this new compound long term stable? I simply do not know this. The researchers probably have a much better idea but I doubt they are certain, either. Other research cells which involve combinations of lithography, film deposition, and high layer count are less likely to have mass market appeal. The point being, at some point in the next couple of years SunPower is going to start shipping 30% efficiency panels, up from the current 20% efficient panels, and solar is going to move from 6 cents to 4 cents per kilowatt hour. At that point, it's going to be difficult to justify coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, and even wind, in most cases. ... and large battery installations will spring up like dog parks. The next step after that will be self sufficient homes with enough solar and battery to be off the grid. That is probably 10 years out, despite seeming right around the corner.
Phase 3a and 3b at Giga Shanghai are moving forward nicely. Roofing is mostly done on the largest buildings, however, roofing is less than half done, overall. They have many acres to cover. I recall monsoon season being a big concern during Phase 1. They were trying to get the roof on by the end of may and they almost made it. It's going to be a while before the roofs are finished on phase 3a/b. Apparently, monsoon season isn't such a problem. Many of the interior pictures show wet floors so they are obviously already in the rainy season. Giga Shanghai looks more like an industrial park than a factory. Jog out to 4:10 if you just want to see the new structures. Meanwhile, at Gruneheide, they are still doing site prep.
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A quick comparison of YouTube video and online articles to WeChat shows how misleading pics and video can be, on a rapidly moving project like Giga Shanghai. In the last 24 hours, two videos were published on YouTube and presented as current video but are clearly more than a week old. Pics on WeChat show the 3A structure is getting really close, although absolutely not "shell complete" as Teslarati is reporting. They are down to a handful of roof panels and maybe 20% of the siding on the 3A structures. 3B structures have completed steel frames but roofing on these structures is just getting started and no siding that I can see. Seeing these pics, I feel emboldened to make some entirely unsubstantiated forward looking statements. The Tesla production ramp is now pretty clear. It appears to take about 7 months to ramp a production line. - build about a dozen units to test the production line, followed by about a month pause - I have no idea about process improvement after the line tests - build a few hundred units and have a product launch party and media event - 3 to 5 day production halt for process improvement - build cars at a rate of about 1000 per month for two or three months - I suspect they are primarily focused on QC problems during this time, as they clearly do not operate at capacity in this period - ramp production line to capacity over a period of 2 or 3 months - I suspect they are primarily focused on logistics and supply chain during this period Assuming the weather envelope of Giga Shanghai 3A structures is in place by the end of June, they may be able to have the structures sufficiently complete internally, as to start fitting production equipment, within about two months. That takes us to the middle of September. It looks like general assembly production equipment can be installed and operational in about three weeks, although they are going to need a lot more than a GA for model Y (paint, stamping, casting, etc). From my perspective, I think they have a real shot at a model Y launch of a few hundred cars in 20Q4. The primary concerns might be: - battery capacity - production of their own cells - casting production ramp Let's compare Tesla's program boot strap compared to anyone else. The Giga Shanghai 3A project started in April, 2020. It appears they will have a low volume stream of cars in consumers hands around the end of the year. That's 9 months to produce model Y at the same rate Chevy produces the Bolt today. VW is still struggling to convert their Zwickau plant from gas to EV production in that time. I point this out, in case anyone still clings to the narrative that legacy builders will blow Tesla out of the water, once they take notice and start building EVs. There is plenty of demand. There isn't enough production capacity. It's clear Tesla is scaling to fill the production void. It's a race to ramp production and Tesla is without peer.
Rome wasn't built in a day, however, Beijing could be if the Chinese set their minds to it. Progress at Giga Shanghai is astonishing. Meanwhile, at Grunheide, it they have poured 22 square, concrete, pads about 5 meters on a side. I won't denigrate the work being done on Giga Berlin but it is clearly not an effort equal to the task of producing cars in early 2021. I'm going to guess they are sampling foundation ideas and finishing site prep while they organize permits and designs. German YouTube hosts frequently declare massive progress and great speed. I how they champion the project and assert their national pride but Giga Shanghai has more equipment in line at the diesel pump than Giga Berlin has on the entire site. At some point, the Berlin project will engage fully and it will be interesting to see how German contractors handle construction. I will speculate they won't work as quickly as the Chinese but I do think they will do some things smarter and will run a better organized site. Perhaps it will be a classic match up of brains versus brawn, not that the Germans don't have epic brawn or the Chinese aren't really smart.
