Giga Factories

Gigafactories are the giant plants that make batteries by the gigawatt-hour, and they are where the cost of clean energy is being driven down. This category looks at the build-out of battery manufacturing around the world. Our posts cover battery gigafactories in China, Europe and the United States: who is building them, how big they are and how quickly capacity is growing to meet demand from electric vehicles and grid storage.

Scale matters because batteries follow a learning curve. Each doubling of production cuts cost, which in turn pulls in more demand. The race to build capacity is shifting where batteries, and the jobs that come with them, are made. We also look at Tesla’s 4680 cell and its production ramp as an example of a company redesigning the battery and the factory together to make cells cheaper.

Supply chains are part of the story. Related posts consider whether there is enough lithium and other minerals to feed the factories, and what that means for the countries that dig up and process them. If you want to understand why battery prices have fallen so far, who is competing to supply the next decade of storage, and how industrial policy shapes the race, these articles give the background.

Gigafactories are the giant plants that make batteries by the gigawatt-hour, and they are where the cost of clean energy is being driven down. This category looks at the build-out of battery manufacturing around the world. Our posts cover battery gigafactories in China, Europe and the United States: who is building them, how big they are and how quickly capacity is growing to meet demand from electric vehicles and grid storage.

Scale matters because batteries follow a learning curve. Each doubling of production cuts cost, which in turn pulls in more demand. The race to build capacity is shifting where batteries, and the jobs that come with them, are made. We also look at Tesla’s 4680 cell and its production ramp as an example of a company redesigning the battery and the factory together to make cells cheaper.

Supply chains are part of the story. Related posts consider whether there is enough lithium and other minerals to feed the factories, and what that means for the countries that dig up and process them. If you want to understand why battery prices have fallen so far, who is competing to supply the next decade of storage, and how industrial policy shapes the race, these articles give the background.