One of the world's most ambitious manufacturing projects will take place in Europe next year. Tesla's Gigafactory 2 will be able to make more batteries and cars than manufacturers in the world combined - or so it says.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the company plans to choose a location for its Gigafactory 2 in Europe next year. He added the factory will be able to produce both batteries and cars.
It can be remembered that the Gigafactory concept is a massive factory that will be capable of producing the equivalent of all the world's current production of lithium-ion batteries - or at least 105GWh. It appears Tesla wants to do the same for cars.
This is following the acquisition of German engineering group Grohmann Engineering in a bid to make "significant investments" in the country.
According to Electrek, the company's Gigafactory concept was originally just for battery cells and packs. However, it appears Tesla is planning to produce drives in its Gigafactory 1 in Nevada.
It appears Tesla plans to integrate its entire production scheme in a single place, and this could prove very profitable if it's successful.
Musk clarified that the company's focus is to get its Model 3 "production ready." However, he also wants to rebuild their manufacturing process, where the "machine builds the machine." The acquisition of Grohmann Engineering will hopefully pave way to a new manufacturing model that can efficiently build cars without that much manual assistance.
This appears to coincide with the projected dates for Model 3 production. Musk said the car will start its production mid-2017, with volume production in late-2017. However, Musk also said they want to make 600,000 a year -- a possibility given its jump in resources.
This is a slight increase from Musk's estimate that once Model 3 is ready for volume production, it will be able to make 500,000 cars a year. However, both Gigafactories may be able to make 500,000 to one million vehicles per year.