Tesla has broken ground on a “Megafactory” that will produce its Megapack, “the largest, densest battery system in the world,” near its distribution center in Lathrop, Calif.
“We are proud to be the home of the Megafactory, Tesla’s most recent expansion here. The future of green energy will be produced right here in our community. This development means more prosperity for our city, more employment opportunities for our residents, and a brighter future for our planet,” Lahtrop mayor Sonny Dhaliwal posted on Facebook.
Megapacks are scaled for public utilities and large-scale commercial customers, a sector that has “significant unmet demand,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors in a June earnings call. Megapacks are “basically sold out through next year,” he said, prompting a need for increased production. Each Megapack system contains 3 megawatt hours of storage.
Much has been made of Tesla’s decision to build an auto manufacturing facility in Texas for its Cybertruck and Tesla Semi, but the Megapack groundbreaking shows the company isn’t ready to abandon California just yet. Dhaliwal’s original post was deleted then reposted, and Tesla did not respond to any reporters’ questions, so it hasn’t exactly been shouting the news from the rooftops.
In the automotive world, Tesla is pushing the Biden administration to increase penalties on car companies that don’t meet fuel economy requirements, reversing a Trump administration action that delayed penalty increases. That action “produces continuing uncertainty in investments and transactions across the industry, and any delays will continue to have deleterious effects on the credit market until the issue is resolved,” Tesla told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to a government memo.
Tesla sells environmental credits it earns from producing electric vehicles to other automakers.
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