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> The giga in giga factory used to refer to GW. That's a good indication of what they are planning to do. Haha, I never thought about that. That's actually a r

> The giga in giga factory used to refer to GW. That's a good indication of what they are planning to do. Haha, I never thought about that. That's actually a really clever way of quantifying the output of a battery factory. Battery capacity can be measured in watt-hours, so battery factory output could be measured in watt-hours of battery capacity produced over time, and power*time/time just reduces back to power (measured in watts). Therefore, you could say that a factory which produces an average of 1 Gigawatt-hours of battery capacity every hour is producing 1 Gigawatt of battery capacity. I like it. And yeah, a TW factory sounds like it'd be operating on a pretty ridiculous scale if it lives up to its name.

sandworm101 6y ago
Another way to look at it would be to ask "how much power would the factory need to charge all the batteriers as it produces them?" A gigawat factory would need a gigawatt electical connection dedicated to charging. That logic suggests that the largest factories will most certainly not be charging thier batteries.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  You don’t sell rechargeable batteries at full power though right? At least I have never got a new iPad at 100%. More like 30%
MagnumOpus 6y ago
Since world electricity production is about 3TW, a battery factory with TW capacity would saturate the world’s charging capacity within three years? (In other words, way too big even for the world’s entire battery needs...)
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Musk is quoted as saying you need 100 Gigafactories. I think there’s room for error, considering the batteries needed to replace all ICE vehicles with EVs, the amount of utility scale battery storage needed to go 100% renewables, and any storage needed beyond those two primary use cases. GF1 in Sparks is also producing above anticipated capacity.
- Ajedi32 6y ago
  Only if your goal is to have enough capacity to store a full year's worth of energy at once. Otherwise you'd saturate the market far sooner than that.
ac29 6y ago
The gigafactory produces 20GWh of batteries per year [0], or 0.002GWh/hour. So, its more like a megafactory by your system. I think it was just meant to mean "a factory which produces 1-999 GWh of batteries per year" - not per hour. [0] https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory edit: this newer 2019 source suggests a 35GWh/year as a "theoretical output". Still orders of magnitude away from a GWh/h. https://electrek.co/2019/04/14/tesla-gigafactory-1-battery-cell-production-issues-elon-musk/ https://electrek.co/2019/04/14/tesla-gigafactory-1-battery-c...
- deleted 6y ago
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sandworm101 6y ago

Another way to look at it would be to ask "how much power would the factory need to charge all the batteriers as it produces them?" A gigawat factory would need a gigawatt electical connection dedicated to charging. That logic suggests that the largest factories will most certainly not be charging thier batteries.

brianwawok 6y ago
You don’t sell rechargeable batteries at full power though right? At least I have never got a new iPad at 100%. More like 30%

MagnumOpus 6y ago

Since world electricity production is about 3TW, a battery factory with TW capacity would saturate the world’s charging capacity within three years? (In other words, way too big even for the world’s entire battery needs...)

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Musk is quoted as saying you need 100 Gigafactories. I think there’s room for error, considering the batteries needed to replace all ICE vehicles with EVs, the amount of utility scale battery storage needed to go 100% renewables, and any storage needed beyond those two primary use cases. GF1 in Sparks is also producing above anticipated capacity.
Ajedi32 6y ago
Only if your goal is to have enough capacity to store a full year's worth of energy at once. Otherwise you'd saturate the market far sooner than that.

ac29 6y ago

The gigafactory produces 20GWh of batteries per year [0], or 0.002GWh/hour. So, its more like a megafactory by your system. I think it was just meant to mean "a factory which produces 1-999 GWh of batteries per year" - not per hour. [0] https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory edit: this newer 2019 source suggests a 35GWh/year as a "theoretical output". Still orders of magnitude away from a GWh/h. https://electrek.co/2019/04/14/tesla-gigafactory-1-battery-cell-production-issues-elon-musk/ https://electrek.co/2019/04/14/tesla-gigafactory-1-battery-c...

deleted 6y ago
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