Tesla, a company that makes electric cars, has told the state of Texas that it wants to spend up to $770 million to expand its already huge factory in Austin.
According to registration documents filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation on January 9 (via CNBC and the Austin Business Journal), Tesla plans to build more facilities for what looks like a battery cell testing lab, cathode and drive unit manufacturing facilities, a die shop, and a 693,093-square-foot facility called Cell 1.
Some of these projects should start building in the next few weeks.
The “Gigafactory Texas,” which opened in April 2022 and has more than 10 million square feet of floor space, is the second-largest building in the world by volume. The factory is Tesla’s fourth in the US and is currently used to make some Model Y cars. In 2023, the company plans to start making its long-awaited Cybertruck there.
Tesla is facing some problems in 2023. The company’s stock value has dropped by more than 71% since November 2021, when it hit an all-time high, due to missed production goals and manufacturing delays. The coverage of road accidents and Musk’s behavior online seem to have hurt the brand’s image, as well as the problems with Tesla’s self-driving technology and CEO Elon Musk’s use of Twitter.
On March 1, 2023, Tesla’s Investor Day will be broadcast live from the Texas Gigafactory. Between Musk’s attempts to make investors happy, we’ll hopefully find out more about the expansion.
Stay tuned to our webiste NogMagazine.com for more updates.
Jessa Martin is the author of Nogmagazine, A professional in writing by day, and novelist by night, she received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University and her master of arts in media studies from the New School. A Brooklyn native, she is a lover of naps, cookie dough, and beaches, currently residing in the borough she loves, most likely multitasking.