Tesla continues to actively build its factory in Austin, Texas. Local officials and companies are admiring the speed of construction. “We are excited to see Tesla moving at ‘The Speed of Elon’ and the tremendous progress already made at the site,” said Charisse Bodisch.
“They’re going very fast. They started this summer with mining and they already are building pads in 60 days,” said Andy Linseisen, Austin's assistant director of development services. "This plant opens next year."
According to the documents that Tesla included in the “Travis County Colorado River Project Partner Pre-Qualification Presentation,” the first substantial completion is scheduled for May 1, 2021.
Construction on Giga Texas continues swiftly, and now the area—which had been a collection of swamps, lakes, and quarries—has turned into an almost flat and neat territory. In just three months, construction teams have done an incredible amount of work. This marks the start of Tesla's ultra-fast construction process, which could even surpass Giga Shanghai and Giga Berlin in pace. At the moment, the company is simultaneously engaged in the construction of three separate factories. As time goes on, Tesla's experience and factory making "tool belt" continue to grow.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also delighted with the progress at Giga Texas:
Tesla Texas team is making great progress! Giga Texas factory will be an asskicker.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2020
A video from Terafactory Texas/YouTube gives us some insight into the current progress at the construction site. GEOPIER work is ongoing on the entire western side. GEOPIER systems provide significant increases in the permissible soils bearing capacity or limit the settlement of supported structures in accordance with project requirements. They are constructed by replacing and / or displacing the soil in successive compacted layers of gravel aggregates using specially patented tools to apply high vertical compaction energy, high frequency and low impact amplitude, thus achieving high internal friction angles (> 50º) in the compacted aggregate and higher rigidity modules than those obtained with vibration techniques.
The installation of footers in the center continues. Just 2 weeks ago, there were 29 of them, and now we can see about 200, which indicates very rapid progress in construction.
A new foundation pit is being dug on the east side. At the moment, it is not known which workshop will be located on the surface, however there is no doubt that the strongest foundation will be under those in which heavy equipment for production will be located, for example, as with Press Shop or Casting.
On the south side, the greatest progress is visible. Installation of a very strong foundation is ongoing, which is built with great reinforcement and is about 15 feet high. This zone occupies a large area.
© 2020, Eva Fox. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
