post Tuesday March 11, 2014
Recently Tesla announced their plans for building a 10-million-square foot ‘Gigafactory’ where they will build their car batteries. These batteries are of the same technology (lithium-ion tech) as the batteries used in mobile gadgets. Tesla hopes that, with the expertise and knowledge of their engineers, they can bring the prices of the batteries and their cars to a price level low enough to compete on the market. Thus, it is quite possible that Tesla will be in every product that is powered by batteries in the future.
It is not surprising that other big companies are looking to buy a company as innovative as Tesla. MIT ranked Tesla second on their list of smartest companies in 2013. There were rumors that Apple is trying to buy Tesla. So far, the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, is not giving any information about his meeting with the representatives of Apple. However, auto industry expert Thilo Koslowski thinks that it is not likely that Apple will buy Tesla. Due to the rumors of a Gigafactory, Apple was probably talking about large-scale production of batteries for their company instead of an actual acquisition, according to the analyst.
Furthermore, Apple could easily provide the amount of money needed to start building the factory and even the costs for the entire project, which is estimated at about $5 billion. With Tesla’s involvement in the products of Apple and vice versa, they both could both reach a whole different level of efficiency and innovation. Eventually both companies hope to get better batteries for their products for less money.
Tesla’s main goal has always been creating a family car that is affordable, the so-called Model E. Battery analyst at Navigant Research, Sam Jaffe, believes that with building the plant the plans of Tesla are not just dreams, but actually attainable. The plant will eventually produce double the amount of lithium ion batteries that are produced in the world today and that is also why the goal of Tesla to lower the prices of the cars is possible.
However, Tesla’s weakness is that their batteries are similar to the ones in smartphones; eventually they will lose 30% of their capacity. That is not only inconvenient, but also dangerous for drivers. ‘’The aspirations of Tesla are not easy to accomplish though, in order to bring the prices down, they have to either find new low-cost materials or find a way to make batteries without raising the costs of the component suppliers’’, says professor Abraham of the Northeastern University.
Even though the new factory of Tesla is really innovative and a sustainable plan for the future, success is not guaranteed. Furthermore, building a ‘Gigafactory’ certainly comes along with huge risks, in order to decrease these risks, they have to diversify the use of the plant and make batteries for many uses instead of one. The ‘Gigafactory’ is, however, really admirable and inspirational for other companies. Especially when you consider the fact that Tesla is planning to power the whole plant with its own solar and wind energy.
Source: wired
Image courtesy of Renjith Krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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