Tesla Presents Its New Megapack Factory In Lathrop, California

Tesla’s all-new battery energy storage system (BESS) factory in Lathrop, California is almost ready and is ramping up production. This week, the company showed a short video, presenting the plant and some of the production processes, on its Linkedin profile. Tesla is now looking for more employees – but that’s not a surprise, as basically the entire EV industry is investing and competing for workers. The site in Lathrop is pretty big as it’s envisioned for an annual output of 40 GWh of Tesla Megapack systems (according to the announcement from 2021).

A single Megapack container has a capacity of about 3 MWh, plus all necessary power electronics. At 40 GWh, Tesla should be able to produce more than 13,000 Megapacks per year. That’s an order of magnitude increase compared to its 2021 output. With the new manufacturing facility, Tesla’s Energy business is now expected to quickly expand. The company recently set a new quarterly record of 2.1 GWh of battery energy storage system deployment (all types).

Once the Lathrop plant is completed, more than 10 GWh to be installed per quarter. That will be a groundbreaking change for the entire industry and potentially a huge help to utilities, which are looking for high-volume and reasonably priced battery systems. Tesla’s advantage will be large BESS like the Megapack, series production at high volume and use of the Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry (the company previously announced the switch to LFP cells in entry-level version of its cars – Model 3/Model Y, and energy storage systems).

Currently, BESS accounts for only several percent of Tesla’s total revenues and margins are much lower than in the case of cars. Because the company is quickly expanding its EV business (higher production of cars and new models), we guess that in the foreseeable future, BESS share will remain under 10%.

https://insideevs.com/news/618643/tesla-megapack-factory-lathrop-california/