Gigafactory Texas on 5 April 2023! This is where Model Y’s are built and soon Cyber Truck production will start!
Some severe thunderstorms cane through the area early this morning, causing a short delay to the start of my video, however, I was able to capture many interesting changes and developments on the site today!
On the west side of the highway, we see the earthwork to remove more hills and fill ponds continues and we now know the name of the company performing the work … Champion site prep! If this is the expansion of the Warehouse on Wheels in this area, it will triple the overall capacity for trailers.
On the south end, we see most of the grade work and removal of underground original pipes, electrical conduits, and other items has been completed and overall, the grade looks ready for the next phase of construction to begin. This is likely reinforced piers as the two cranes are finishing assembly of the drilling apparatus.
Timestamps:
Drone flight overview with discussion & illustration: 0:06 to 3:25
Drone flight footage & infographics: 3:53 to 27:51
Some other highlights you’ll see in the video today include:
The west main entrance reconfiguration work continues, now with many large trees being planted in the two triangular areas on either side of the “cyber berms”. Nearby, we see the white wall stain application is now over the wide window areas over the main entrance, with more plastic sheeting on the windows and crews preparing the bare concrete for the stain application.
On the east side near the helicopter pad, we see crews working on the “wind tunnel” device, with trenching to install electrical conduits that will connect the testing container assembly to the rental semi-trailer generator.
Slightly farther to the east, we see the new southeast clearing area has had all the gravel mix spread on the grade, and it appears this may be used in the short term as a new material storage location as some equipment and vehicles have been moved onto the new surface.
We see three areas of water pipe installation that will serve to connect the Die Shop and Battery Cathode plant to the water main. The first is just to the north of the casting machine structure. Nearby to this area, we see another section with active crews in trenches installing the blue water pipe and just north of Tesla Road, we see the third installation site.
Electrical conduit installation is progressing in two parallel trenches and nearby four concrete vaults on the south end of the Die Shop. Also, the large yellow crane that was installing concrete wall panels on the Die Shop has now been moved to the east side of the battery cathode plant and it appears it may be used to install more of the external wall panels on this structure.
At the future Megapack battery electrical storage system (BESS) construction site, not only do we see the newly graded rectangular construction site and the gravel covered south end, but today, we see several semi-trailers delivering materials here, a possible early sign of the start of construction on this area!
Thank you for watching and I hope this has been informative, educational, and entertaining for you. If you would like, please consider supporting me via Patreon (link is in the description of this video and in the video itself) so I can continue to make and share these incredible videos.
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Be sure to check out additional Texas Gigafactory footage on these channels:
@Jeff Roberts
@Brad Sloan
Video, photos, illustrations, and commentary on this video is by me, Joe Tegtmeyer unless otherwise annotated.
Music in this video is obtained from the YouTube free and unrestricted and royalty-free use library. Ending song is Mr. Sunny Face – Wayne Jones
Drones used are DJI Mavic Mini, Mini 2 and Mavic Air 2.
Drone flight over Giga Texas is with permission of Tesla and CEO Elon Musk
48 Comments
Thanks Joe!
At last
Great to see trees at the entrance. It was too bleak before. Glad someone is taking care in the entrance design. It was awful before and now is as it should be.
With the crusher knocked down, have they removed all the waste in the area? Will they move the crusher to one of the other concrete waste piles.?
Ah using the truck at the end with a Model Y in it that "should not be seen" in the hidden transport truck.
Hey Joe? 23:42 if you look at the SE corner of the original WOW yard there are 2 megapacks and a bunch of other equipment hiding in plain site.
Excellent coverage again Joe, Thanks.
I swear Joe, there going to ware that dirt out digging around those loading docks on the east side.😄
Main entrance: @ 10:49 Exactly what I was hoping to see 🙂
Too bad they poured the concrete only to rip it up though. Why not do the job right in the first place? How hard is that?
Joe – I would appreciate if you would comment on the new Model Y’s with car covers – could it be a slightly updated model?? HW4? Thanks – you do an amazing job for the Tesla community!!!
Hey Joe! My guess for those trapezoidal objects by the main entrance is that they a ground mounted light stanchions to illuminate the entire front entrance area. Thanks Greg
I am waiting to see the interconnection of the substation, mega pack and factory.
Is there some reason they just scatter the castings outside like that instead of just putting them directly onto the racks?
In the DIE shop…. I have only seen foundations that thick for a large Turbine Generator for a power plant that spins at a very high rate of speed. The large foundation helps with vibration more than weight.
I wonder if the device that will stationed there will be something more along that.
With all the vehicles they intend to build, the East Warehouse on Wheels space will be needed for new vehicle storage and staging.
BTW-Does anybody else view these videos at 2x speed like I do? Does that affect the YouTube "credits?"
Cyber berm? Cyber pond? 🤦🏻♂️
Thank you for continuously pointing out the obvious.
Joe, to me it looks like they've left the megapack area w/o gravel because the first thing they need to do is to install the underground conduit. Then they can finish the surface for installing the megapacks.
Thanks Joe
7:05. Southend. Large crate. Another particularly heavy delivery in the north end of the WOW yard at 22:15.
8:10. Southend. Drilling rig assembled on the crane. 2 sets of stands for assembling the rebar cages. One cage completed.
8:46. Stamping 2. Excavator inside dumping a load of spoil into the dump truck.
9:16. GA south, loading platform. New grey steel, more of level 4.
11:46. GA, highway berm side. Speculating this is the first section of a larger stretch to be reconfigured as landscaping. It’s otherwise a near random location.
12:55. Battery, apron. Excavator with the screw head attached. Doesn’t look like it’s done any work. This or similar was seen being delivered 29 March. Same contractor (Brown and Claude) did the auger pile work in Casting, and Stamping 2 in the last few months.
13:41. Casting, apron. Small bin has hardened aluminium/aluminum from the injection cylinder.
A sheetmetal Model Y front end assembly on the blue pallet.
15:38. New Switchyard/Substation. Bottom right. Placing lids/covers over the cable trays. Cabling might be mostly done in the trays.
16:31. New Switchyard/Substation. Stormwater trench works. Tieing back a trench shield side to a block of concrete.
17:22. MM Batch Plant, waste pile. Crushing plant has been dismantled. Possibly preparing a new site for it to the left.
21:44. Cathode, plant platform apron. The light tan tank assemblies have been shifted under the plant platform, just visible in one of Joe’s photos.
Makes room for the large stainless tanks to the north. Slab here is thickened to take some substantial load. https://youtu.be/X0kr48p6Lbg?t=998
22:15. WOW yard, north. Right. Heavy delivery on the extra extra heavy duty low loader. Under the black tarp.
22:40. WOW yard, south. Stack of salvaged wall panels. Likely as temporary aprons/floors for workshops.
25:01. Helipad area. Small cylinder in the fenced area is a drone installation. I won’t even attempt to post a link, but a search for ‘Percepto done in a box’ should reveal the machine.
17:30 that area/pond where they have been digging the concret has been filled partially with dirt and covered with a gravel like material.
19:31 looks like 2 large generators, one on the west side and one on the south side of the die shop
19:23 that conduit trench has to run under that workshop at the bottom left. They will have to remove the workshop.
Tesla has installed a lot of Megapacks worldwide. It should be a show to see this one go in, and being next to the highway is no accident.
24:26 “Nicola form of propulsion”. That’s a huge belly laugh! Thanks.
With empty racks why would they have all those castings just sitting on the ground?
Thanks Joe! Your videos and narration are alway fascinating.
Hi Joe, I just realized your 1000th day since the first Giga Texas video (24 July 2020) is going to be on 4/20 (LOL). Amazing dedication and closing in on 500 videos, too (probably May?). Thanks for all you have done/are doing. Cheers.
As I recall, the south end slopes from the building to the cyber pond. I would think that that the building area would be leveled before a large area of deep foundation drilling is performed.
they going regret puttin those tree so close together in few years when they get taller and wider
Hey Joe I was watching TESLA Daily @TeslaDaily tonight. He mentioned the Logistics Center in Berlin was for WH to get away a bit from JIT and any supply constraints that might slow down production. I would bet that the same will be happening at Austin.
request, the music that you play when flying around and not talking, if you could please reduce the volume (50%+) I do enjoy watching the video and hearing your comments, the music less so. i will continue to watch even if not tho, thanks for the videos.
Have you considered a fly over of the rail head near Hutto? Last post I saw was months ago and they were tripling the number of rails to load cars. Be interesting to see the progress.
👋👍
(the racks for castings should be fitted for containers as in the temporary warehouse on wheels )
Merci👍👍👍
I'm concerned those trees are not planted in very much actual soil.
7:53. The crane on the right is set up for drilling "continuous flight auger" (CFA) piles, also known as auger cast piling.
"The Nikola form of propulsion". SNAP. damn, Joe getting your sass on.
great presentation
I assume that the Administration Department is within the main factory building instead of in a separate Administration Building like most large industrial sites have.
If Tesla would be into landscaping I would not be an investor 😅
How does the nearby train station look like where they are picking up Model Ys from? It was also under expansion a couple of months ago. Maybe you can do a quick flyover at some point? 🙂
Rolling the white Tesla off the accordion-style trailer using the 'Nikola form of propulsion' – Burn! Thanks Joe – love the videos!
Wow
19:50 what kind of machine is it in die shop that is uncovered?
Fantastic Joe, thanks… The Nikola powered Tesla 🤣
checking in for the first time for awhile but they got rid of the giant concrete pad? I don't understand why they're redoing so much work
Your speech is very clear and easy understandable for me as a foreigner from Europe
👍
Hey Joe, video question, why are there video transitions every minute or so of record time. It doesn't seem that the drone has moved, but I can see the video skips ahead a few seconds. I was just wondering why this is? Thanks.
love to watch the progress could you tell me the type of drone you are using.