Photo: Vimeo screenshot
The motors may get all the praise and the attention since they're the ones making Teslas go fast down the drag strip, but it's really the battery management that sets the Californian EVs apart from their competition.
That's probably why you are more likely to find out Elon Musk's shoe size and home wi-fi password than what exactly goes on inside the company's Gigafactory in Nevada, where those batteries are being built. Well, a team from the Science Channel got the green light to make a short documentary about the place for the Super Factories series, which means we get a rare insight into what goes on in there.
The Gigafactory was probably Tesla's largest bet, but it was something that needed to be done if the company was to go from a niche manufacturer to a mass-market carmaker. We knew the facility was impressive from the exterior shots alone, but now we get to see a fraction of what's happening inside, as well as find out some interesting facts about the building itself and the production line.
For one thing, there's that number of battery cells built every day. Thirteen million sounds like a lot, but when you consider the fact that one Model 3 takes nearly 4,500 of them and that Tesla makes other models as well as Powerwalls, you realize you can never have too many batteries when you're in the EV business.
The clip itself isn't great, and as a car fan, you'll find it difficult to stomach some basic errors like showing a Model S and a Model X while talking about the smaller Model 3. Calling it the "M3" doesn't help either. It shows the same kind of topic-related ignorance that makes news anchors call the Model Y a "Model 7."
In the end, you're not so much watching the video for the information provided by the voiceover, but for the shots from inside the Gigafactory. Plus, the parts about the AGVs (Autonomous Guided Vehicles) and the ten-million-gallon water reservoir used to cool the facility are genuinely interesting.
The Gigafactory was probably Tesla's largest bet, but it was something that needed to be done if the company was to go from a niche manufacturer to a mass-market carmaker. We knew the facility was impressive from the exterior shots alone, but now we get to see a fraction of what's happening inside, as well as find out some interesting facts about the building itself and the production line.
For one thing, there's that number of battery cells built every day. Thirteen million sounds like a lot, but when you consider the fact that one Model 3 takes nearly 4,500 of them and that Tesla makes other models as well as Powerwalls, you realize you can never have too many batteries when you're in the EV business.
The clip itself isn't great, and as a car fan, you'll find it difficult to stomach some basic errors like showing a Model S and a Model X while talking about the smaller Model 3. Calling it the "M3" doesn't help either. It shows the same kind of topic-related ignorance that makes news anchors call the Model Y a "Model 7."
In the end, you're not so much watching the video for the information provided by the voiceover, but for the shots from inside the Gigafactory. Plus, the parts about the AGVs (Autonomous Guided Vehicles) and the ten-million-gallon water reservoir used to cool the facility are genuinely interesting.
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