Tesla currently produces battery cells at Giga Nevada and at Giga Texas with the addition of 4680 battery cell production equipment installed earlier this year. Tesla is also producing 4680 cells at their facility on Kato Rd, just south of the Fremont factory in California.
Now the company appears to want to expand their battery production capacity even further by adding a new battery production line to the Fremont factory itself.
According to a building permit application filed with the City of Fremont on August 26, 2022, Tesla wants to install the new line on the second floor of the main assembly building.
The description of the permit (Tesla F21-0392-A- CTA Battery B-Build) says this application is specific to the “module portion of the line” and values the proposed project at $1.5 million.
Unfortunately the application doesn’t go into detail into which type of battery cells Tesla plans to produce on this new line, but it would not be surprising to see it be for the 4680 cell given how the company is focusing on increasing its production.
According to city records, the permit has been assigned to a Community Development Technician in the Plans & Permits division of the Building and Safety Department for further review.
This isn’t the only permit related to a battery manufacturing line being added at Fremont. A separate $1.3 million application was also filed with the city to build a new maintenance office, storage area, production cells with equipment for hood, fender, and trunk lids, and offline cell manufacturing equipment on the first floor of the main assembly building, as reported by Teslarati.
The move to add a battery manufacturing line at Fremont is quite surprising considering the how cramped the factory already is. Analysts who have visited and toured the factory say that it is running above capacity, despite its limitations due to its awkward layout.
At the same time it is not as surprising considering Elon Musk said earlier this year they were considering expanding the factory “significantly.” As it turns out that expansion may be to add a whole new production process to the factory.
Despite its limitations, Fremont recently celebrated building its 2 millionth car, a Red Multi-Coat Model 3 Performance. It also achieved a single day production record in June.
