From Joe Tegtmeyer.
Gigafactory Texas! This is where Model Y’s, Cyber Truck the Next Generation Car(s), Cybercab & the Optimus Robot production happens in 2025!
What a gorgeous day to fly and there were so many Cybertrucks on the lot today! I’m not sure if the numbers of Cybertrucks I saw were related in any way to the new announcement of the change in lineup to include the long range RWD variant, but there certainly were a lot of them on the outbound lot today!
I expect the most common question I will get is were any of these the RWD variant and to that I’d have to answer no … it seemed to me all of these had the metal tonneau cover and that would be the most visible and obvious difference I could easily tell from the drone. I’m curious to see what the reaction will be to the new RWD Cybertruck and how well it may sell or how much it will drive buyers to the AWD version.
Timestamps:
Drone flight overview with discussion & illustration: 0:06 to 5:04
Drone flight footage & infographics: 5:21 to 30:27
In the video introduction, I do talk at length about the new RWD variant of the Cybertruck with data sheets, order pages, images of various features and more. In addition, we discuss the start of sales of Tesla cars including the Cybertruck in Saudi Arabia .. this represents not only a big selling market for Tesla, but also the first non-American continent sales of the Cybertruck in the world. Hopefully this is the start of many more!
Also in the intro, I talk about the progress at the Megapack #2 site, as now almost 3/4s of the Megapacks have been delivered and placed onto their support beams. More trucks were arriving with Megapacks, so they might have all of them placed by the end of the weekend and ready for crews to begin electrical cable installation.
A few other items of note today:
On the south end of the main factory roof, we see the first new line of solar panels being added in almost 2 years. This is on the bottom of the “A” in TESLA and we can tell more panels are stacked nearby to continue more installation. Currently there are about 30,000 of the planned 70,000+ solar panels on the roof, so there remains a lot of work ahead to complete the installation. Hopefully this is the start of a concerted effort to do so over the spring and summer.
Big progress at the North Central Campus Support Facility construction area with a lot of pre-powder coated steel column and beam deliveries today. In addition, many of these are already being placed near the completed footings, which indicates vertical construction is getting ready to happen soon.
Nearby the site, the tall cranes recently assembled appear ready to begin work next week lifting the columns onto the footing mounts. In addition, the, perimeter grade beam construction is proceeding quickly on the east, south and west sides of the massive new foundation, helping to outline the main building footprint and showing us visually this will be one large single structure and not the two as illustrated in the most recent permits I was able to find on the City of Austins Permit site.
I also noted the crews have moved the temporary rebar cage assembly area farther to the north, closer to where the next set of footing excavations will begin. This seems to indicate (at least to me) the south end of the new structure is the priority to begin vertical construction as quickly as possible, and then crews will turn their attention to the north end.
I’m not sure why this project is being approached in this way, but my guess is they have equipment hey want to begin installing in the south area as quickly as possible because that equipment might take a long time to install. Perhaps this is the location of the stored stamping press items on the far SW staging yard we see in today’s video. I guess time will tell!
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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 Mini 2, Mavic Air 2 & Air 3.
Drone flight over Giga Texas is with permission of Tesla and CEO Elon Musk
