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Tesla Is Investing $350 Million In Its Gigafactory, Hiring Hundreds of Workers (cnbc.com)
Just weeks after the massive Gigafactory started producing batteries, Tesla has announced plans to hire more workers and use the facility to make the motor and gearbox for its upcoming Model 3 electric sedan. CNBC reports: Tesla will invest $350 million for the project, and hire an additional 550 people, according to the governor's comments. That will be over and above the company's existing commitment to hiring 6,500 people at the Gigafactory, according to comments made by Steve Hill, the director of the governor's Office of Economic Development, to Nevada newspaper the Nevada Appeal. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made manufacturing efficiency a high priority for the company, but Tesla will require a lot of factory floor to meet its goal of to pumping out 500,000 cars by the end of 2018, and then making one million cars by 2020. Meanwhile, the city of Fremont recently approved Tesla's application for an additional 4.6 million square feet of space there.
I was curious as to why Tesla needs special gearboxes, but apparently the Model S uses a 9.73:1 single-gear reduction. I guess this lets the engineering team tweak the voltage to torque ratios (as opposed to rewinding the motors and modifying the drive circuitry). https://forums.tesla.com/forum...
The entry level will have a 200 mile range. I'm sure there will be versions with more than a 200 mile range. As long as there is charging at the ranch it isn't a problem. I drive over 200 miles in my model S without any problems. Also, adding 20-50 miles of range at a supercharger doesn't take very long. When the supercharger kicks in on my model S it charges at over 300 miles/hour and my car is a 1st generation. The current ones charge faster since mine is limited to 90KW (revision A battery pack) and the new ones charge at 135KW and may soon hit 150KW. With my car, if I had to add 20 miles of range and my battery were at 20-40% it would take approximately 4 minutes to add 20 miles of range.
Being smaller and lighter I expect the model 3 will gain range quite a bit faster than the model S, since the same amount of power will provide more range.
On my last trip to Reno I had to stop in Truckee to use the restroom at the nearby grocery store. In the time it took me to use the restroom and buy a couple items I had another 50 miles of range.
I generally find that the speed of charging at a destination isn't all that important as long as I can be fully charged overnight.
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