It is unclear if the upcoming Tesla Model 3 will come with an autopilot feature.
Advertisement
In a December blog post, Tesla said Mobileye’s EyeQ3 chip, which is used in the Model S and Model X, “is the best in the world at what it does, and that is why we use it”.
According to a description of the company’s conference call immediately following the report, provided by Briefing.com, Mobileye management sad that its relationship with Tesla “will not go beyond EyeQ3 chip as it seeks closer collaborations (like BMW/INTC) as opposed to just supply agreements in order to protect reputation/perception of autonomous driving”.
So, what would the future hold for Tesla? The lower cost batteries produced here will be crucial for keeping the Model 3’s price down to a relatively affordable $35,000 base price. “There’s nothing unexpected here from our standpoint”, Musk said.
Regarding subsidies and tax breaks, Musk said, “Nevada is not paying for this factory”, adding that the package Nevada offered the company made up only a tiny fraction of the factory’s total costs, estimated to be around $5 billion. The original plan had been to reach that goal by 2020 but Tesla pulled that goal forward by two years speeding up construction on parts of the factory and bringing and installing equipment earlier. Inside the factory, Tesla’s partner, Panasonic Corp. – which has invested $1.6 billion into the factory – is installing machines in sealed, humidity-controlled rooms that will start making battery cells before the end of this year. Eventually, the roof will be covered in solar panels. Compared with clients such as Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co, “Tesla’s impact is quite small”, BlueStar said. Peak output could be upped to 150 gigawatt hours, according to Tesla’s CEO. One gigawatt hour is the equivalent of generating one billion watts for one hour – one million times that of one kilowatt hour.
Musk said he can get emotional thinking about this giant battery factory.
Tesla also says the Gigafactory will create around 10,000 new jobs over the next three to four years in the local region.
Advertisement
“They could be left with a lot of excess capacity in the near term”, said Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst with Navigant Research. That plan includes proposals to move his company beyond electric cars and batteries, including ones for heavy-duty trucks and for high-passenger-density urban transport, which is something luxury carmaker Daimler is now developing. To make this happen, the companies will use the BMW iNEXT model.
