Tesla is doubling down on its effort to complete construction of its massive battery manfuacturing facility, affectionately dubbed the Gigafactory. With 1,000 workers building seven days a week across two shifts, Tesla is hoping to start churning out lithium-ion cells by the end of the year although it'll be several more years before the entire structure is complete and running at full capacity.
Tesla's electric vehicles are well-known for, among other things, their high price. That's largely out of necessity as building a car company from the ground-up is no easy task, especially one that deals exclusively in all-electric vehicles.
Indeed, getting the Gigafactory online ASAP is a top priority as Tesla has hundreds of thousands of Model 3 reservations to fill in the coming years. As of early June, Tesla had 373,000 Model 3 reservations after adjusting down from 400,000 based on what were likely duplicates.
The Gigafactory is an incredible feat of engineering. Once complete in 2020, it'll consist of 5.8 million square feet and be the largest building in the world (based on ground footprint). By comparison, CES has just 2.47 million square feet of exhibit space and it feels absolutely massive.
In full swing, Tesla says it'll reduce its costs by 30 percent, a critical cog in its ability to offer the Model 3 at a base price of $35,000. At that rate, Tesla forecasts to produce more batteries at its Gigafactory than were made in the entire world in 2014. Right now, however, the factory is only 14 percent complete.