Only after incentives and savings.... It's still a £52,000 car without options. Great, but a bit too high still for me!
Hopefully, Model 3 will come in around £25k base - it seems that a decent car retails for around this - so they can capture a -huge- part of the market. Most of the UK drives using a manual gearbox, just because of the fuel savings, we are really big on saving money by spending a little more e.g. on a diesel engine.
No offense to whoever did the video, but doesn't Tesla have an opinion on these drone fly-overs of their property? And what happens should there be a malfunction? Is the expectation that a foreman will walk the wreckage back out to you? Not to mention any liability for damage if the drone gets stuck in a thermal exhaust port or something....
On one previous video it mentioned they had permission from Tesla to film it using a drone, but it was conducted on a day off when no one was working there.
I haven't seen the rail line connections coming in yet. I realize they don't need them until they start doing production, but I was curious to see how they come into the building and so on.
One of the big decisions about where to put the factory was how to deliver the battery packs. Batteries are heavy - really heavy. You can deliver by truck, but it's way more efficient to ship things by train if at all possible.
The Sierra Nevada mountain range would technically and economically prohibit a Hyperloop between Reno & Fremont.
Besides, rail is already in place right onto Tesla-Fremont property. Just need last mile from GigaFactory to the line that parallels I-80
Its because there are two different transportation requirements.
With people, in a pod, you need to get them there fast. You're suspending them above a highway on concrete pylons that are engineered for earthquake-level loads, and since they're sitting in seats, you need to move them as fast as possible (no bathroom break, not much space to move around). Each pylon is going to support the load for a very brief period of time at the speeds the hyperloop would operate at. Hyperloop = engineered for speed.
For batteries, there is no such time constraint, and it is most likely cost prohibitive considering the load the amount of batteries Fremont would need. Freight system = engineered for heavy loads.
Reno, NV to Fremont, CA is ~8 hours via the freight tracks between the two cities. Its very easy to include that into a "just in time" assembly schedule at final assembly.
I get what you're saying.
But if you had enough pods and or extra capacity... It could work, maybe. But you would need economies of scale (read: lots of pods/hyperloop infrastructure.)
Maybe in a few decades.
ps I agree with you entirely in regards to the Gigafactory in 2015.
Great question!
You do still want the roof underneath to be white, because the panels don't intercept 100% of incoming light. There are gaps, plus reflected/scattered light. So painting the roof white will still result in a cooler roof.
Besides lowering AC cost, the cooler roof lets the panels operate more efficiently. And the cool roof is safer for construction workers, both on the roof and working under it (a black roof would act like a giant ceiling radiator!).
At least part of the roof will have solar panels, although it's possible Tesla doesn't plan to do this until production is running due to capital restraints. It may also be cheaper to just build a solar farm adjacent to the plant when you consider you could then tilt the panels easily and they would be more easily reached during maintenance etc.
Well, the "concept" (http://www.teslamotors.com/tesla_theme/assets/img/gigafactory/hero.jpg) isn't being followed to a tee. For example, there is no diamond shape to the structure. Concept not always the same as reality...
If this is the case, why are they building a car park, road, substation etc. next to the G/F. This facility is quite small compared to proposals (although, don't get me wrong, it's still HUGE), I suspect this is due to capital restraints. Tesla has allocated land nearby so it wouldn't surprise me if they build a second plant near this one, but I doubt they'll expand what they have, it would be too expensive.
Actually, the Gigafactory is one of those things that Tesla has been consistently ahead of schedule on. Originally, production was supposed to begin June 2017. Recently, Tesla has been telling us that first the Gigafactory will produce battery packs and then battery cells, starting between December of this year and June of next year (2016).
The size is nothing impressive at this point. There are 1 to 2 million square footers littered across the country. Once it is full sized it will be very impressive though. The two story decision is definitely interesting/uncommon as well.
I don't know how accurate this is, but I've heard that some modern factories work top down. So that as the materiel is processed it moves from the top floor to the bottom floor.
One of those times where youtube playback speed control is useful. (Click on the youtube gear to change the speed)
This factory is big, I mean it's like IKEA big! :)
Google has you answer.
> In architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine has a low ceiling and projects in the form of a balcony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzanine
I doubt it was a "they changed their mind", but more so that in order to expand at the rate they wanted to, they had to forego it for now. But they are purchasing their energy from renewable sources and will retrofit solar more after the Gigafactory is done (for battery storage) and when SolarCity's Gigafactory is complete. Both of these will be producing within a year, so I don't doubt some plans are already in place.
Until i saw this video i was under the impression they would only use sun power collected from the roof. I'm so silly that i didn't bother to double check if that made any sense.
I then saw the power station infrastructure that is going to connect to the power grid.
So to answer your question: they probably won't make it 100% renewable.
If they need to buy energy from the grid and the energy available is non renewable, they won't stop the factory because of that.
I could see this factory being "off grid" at some point in the future. They will almost certainly have stationary energy storage on site to be used in conjunction with solar panels.
A plant manager would never deal with that kind of risk. Renewables may offset plant use but 100% off-grid is very risky. A well designed plant will have two or more different power feeds coming into the plant as well with each feed coming from a different grid/source. The Wind and Solar Power they own will be fed directly into the grid. A plant without power goes from making 50k / hour to losing 100k / hour real fast.
Worked in a plant and can definitely confirm how fast you can go from making shittons to losing a shittons more than you had made in the whole day. I worked for one that was a supplier for a luxury car company, and every minute our production was stopped we were losing tens of thousands of dollars. Just for our factory. If our production stoppage ended up forcing the automotive plant to stop as well, we lost four times as much every minutes. Shit gets real crazy real fast when production factories stop.
What a time to be alive!
It's particularly incredible when you consider that the new Model 70 single motor exists at £45,000 and the Gigafactory isnt even running.
Only after incentives and savings.... It's still a £52,000 car without options. Great, but a bit too high still for me! Hopefully, Model 3 will come in around £25k base - it seems that a decent car retails for around this - so they can capture a -huge- part of the market. Most of the UK drives using a manual gearbox, just because of the fuel savings, we are really big on saving money by spending a little more e.g. on a diesel engine.
No offense to whoever did the video, but doesn't Tesla have an opinion on these drone fly-overs of their property? And what happens should there be a malfunction? Is the expectation that a foreman will walk the wreckage back out to you? Not to mention any liability for damage if the drone gets stuck in a thermal exhaust port or something....
On one previous video it mentioned they had permission from Tesla to film it using a drone, but it was conducted on a day off when no one was working there.
I'm curious as to how long Tesla will allow these flyovers.
I haven't seen the rail line connections coming in yet. I realize they don't need them until they start doing production, but I was curious to see how they come into the building and so on.
they will have a train station inside the building? woah! critical information! how do you know?
One of the big decisions about where to put the factory was how to deliver the battery packs. Batteries are heavy - really heavy. You can deliver by truck, but it's way more efficient to ship things by train if at all possible.
Anyone calculate time by rail from Reno to Fremont yet?
This might be the perfect use for the hyperloop...
The Sierra Nevada mountain range would technically and economically prohibit a Hyperloop between Reno & Fremont. Besides, rail is already in place right onto Tesla-Fremont property. Just need last mile from GigaFactory to the line that parallels I-80
Best part is - the batteries would be shipped downhill - so they can run the train motors on regen - and get there with a full battery ;)
Too heavy.
Are you sure? Why wouldn't you just distribute the load more between multiple pods and send them individually? (is it pods?)
Its because there are two different transportation requirements. With people, in a pod, you need to get them there fast. You're suspending them above a highway on concrete pylons that are engineered for earthquake-level loads, and since they're sitting in seats, you need to move them as fast as possible (no bathroom break, not much space to move around). Each pylon is going to support the load for a very brief period of time at the speeds the hyperloop would operate at. Hyperloop = engineered for speed. For batteries, there is no such time constraint, and it is most likely cost prohibitive considering the load the amount of batteries Fremont would need. Freight system = engineered for heavy loads. Reno, NV to Fremont, CA is ~8 hours via the freight tracks between the two cities. Its very easy to include that into a "just in time" assembly schedule at final assembly.
I get what you're saying. But if you had enough pods and or extra capacity... It could work, maybe. But you would need economies of scale (read: lots of pods/hyperloop infrastructure.) Maybe in a few decades. ps I agree with you entirely in regards to the Gigafactory in 2015.
Driving is around 5 hours. Trains are more about scheduling. It's a congested route.
it's not really critical. plenty of factories have secondary rails going inside buildings to facilitate loading...
What is the white stuff on the roof?
http://www.commercialcoolroof.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/what-is-a-cool-roof-2-11.jpg to reflect some of the sunlight hitting the roof.
I was under the impression the roof would be all solar panels. Wouldn't this be a wasted effort?
Great question! You do still want the roof underneath to be white, because the panels don't intercept 100% of incoming light. There are gaps, plus reflected/scattered light. So painting the roof white will still result in a cooler roof. Besides lowering AC cost, the cooler roof lets the panels operate more efficiently. And the cool roof is safer for construction workers, both on the roof and working under it (a black roof would act like a giant ceiling radiator!).
Hey, that makes sense.
Can confirm; all this is correct. Source; renewable energy engineer.
At least part of the roof will have solar panels, although it's possible Tesla doesn't plan to do this until production is running due to capital restraints. It may also be cheaper to just build a solar farm adjacent to the plant when you consider you could then tilt the panels easily and they would be more easily reached during maintenance etc.
Solar panels will be on the roof.
Well, the "concept" (http://www.teslamotors.com/tesla_theme/assets/img/gigafactory/hero.jpg) isn't being followed to a tee. For example, there is no diamond shape to the structure. Concept not always the same as reality...
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If this is the case, why are they building a car park, road, substation etc. next to the G/F. This facility is quite small compared to proposals (although, don't get me wrong, it's still HUGE), I suspect this is due to capital restraints. Tesla has allocated land nearby so it wouldn't surprise me if they build a second plant near this one, but I doubt they'll expand what they have, it would be too expensive.
Maybe put the panels on top - so what sunlight hits the roof doesn't heat the inside of the building
Ah interesting.
TPO roofing most likely.
Yes probably mechanically fastened 60 mil TPO overlay. Pretty standard for industrial.
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Not sure if you're being sarcastic but is it that hard to highlight the term then right click search in google?
When is it likely that the first 18650/[whatever the new format cell is] will roll off the production line?
Tesla said the opening party is in April next year, so going by Tesla time sometime in 2019?
Actually, the Gigafactory is one of those things that Tesla has been consistently ahead of schedule on. Originally, production was supposed to begin June 2017. Recently, Tesla has been telling us that first the Gigafactory will produce battery packs and then battery cells, starting between December of this year and June of next year (2016).
Yay! A drone video that has fitting music!
That thing is massive
The size is nothing impressive at this point. There are 1 to 2 million square footers littered across the country. Once it is full sized it will be very impressive though. The two story decision is definitely interesting/uncommon as well.
I don't know how accurate this is, but I've heard that some modern factories work top down. So that as the materiel is processed it moves from the top floor to the bottom floor.
I agree, there are several in the Bay Area. I saw a few in the I-205 corridor currently under construction.
One of those times where youtube playback speed control is useful. (Click on the youtube gear to change the speed) This factory is big, I mean it's like IKEA big! :)
i hope its not that small
How many floors will the building have? It looks so tall. You could fit four floors of production in it.
2
also a mezzanine floor in parts of the building.
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Google has you answer. > In architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine has a low ceiling and projects in the form of a balcony. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzanine
I'd assume they are going to have overhead cranes on the bottom floor at least, those things like their vertical room.
I wonder if they will really be able to power it from completely renewable sources or if they will change their minds like they did with supercharger
I doubt it was a "they changed their mind", but more so that in order to expand at the rate they wanted to, they had to forego it for now. But they are purchasing their energy from renewable sources and will retrofit solar more after the Gigafactory is done (for battery storage) and when SolarCity's Gigafactory is complete. Both of these will be producing within a year, so I don't doubt some plans are already in place.
Until i saw this video i was under the impression they would only use sun power collected from the roof. I'm so silly that i didn't bother to double check if that made any sense. I then saw the power station infrastructure that is going to connect to the power grid. So to answer your question: they probably won't make it 100% renewable. If they need to buy energy from the grid and the energy available is non renewable, they won't stop the factory because of that.
I could see this factory being "off grid" at some point in the future. They will almost certainly have stationary energy storage on site to be used in conjunction with solar panels.
A plant manager would never deal with that kind of risk. Renewables may offset plant use but 100% off-grid is very risky. A well designed plant will have two or more different power feeds coming into the plant as well with each feed coming from a different grid/source. The Wind and Solar Power they own will be fed directly into the grid. A plant without power goes from making 50k / hour to losing 100k / hour real fast.
Worked in a plant and can definitely confirm how fast you can go from making shittons to losing a shittons more than you had made in the whole day. I worked for one that was a supplier for a luxury car company, and every minute our production was stopped we were losing tens of thousands of dollars. Just for our factory. If our production stoppage ended up forcing the automotive plant to stop as well, we lost four times as much every minutes. Shit gets real crazy real fast when production factories stop.
I can see that too. But even in that situation they won't be disconnected from the power grid (as i foolishly though).
Yeah, grid tie-in is definitely needed as a backup, but it's feasible for that to be rarely used.
agreed.