Drone footage reveals surprising infrastructure at new Tesla Gigafactory construction site: ‘This is going to be huge’

Jeremiah Budin
·2 min read
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Construction is underway at Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin on several projects, including a battery-cell testing lab, and one of the many YouTube channels that captures drone footage of Tesla sites and sets it to elevator music is on the case.

The footage, captured by YouTube drone operator Tobias Lindh (@TobiasLindh), shows the progress of the factory over time and displays an interesting use of solar power technology at the site. As analyzed by InsideEVs, it appears that Tesla has installed 19 V4 Supercharger stalls at the Gigafactory and put them under a row of solar roof canopies.

This means that Tesla is likely harnessing clean energy from the sun and putting it directly to use charging electric vehicles.

EVs do much less damage to the environment than traditional gas-powered cars. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Energy, the typical gas-powered car creates 11,435 pounds of planet-warming carbon pollution per year. In comparison, the typical battery-powered EV creates only 3,932 pounds.

However, the amount of pollution produced by EVs — while it is much lower than the amount produced by gas-powered cars — could get even lower, and one of the ways that it could get lower is by using clean energy, such as solar, to create the electricity used to power those cars. Hence, EV charging stations directly powered by solar energy harvested on-site are a good thing for the planet.

“Good. All high-speed charging stations need to have on-premises solar panels covering the charging pumps,” wrote one InsideEVs commenter.

“Amen to that!” agreed another.

“I’ve always wondered — how much power do these solar panels supply? How many Teslas on average can a sunny day support? Is it 5? 20? 50? This is going to be huge for Tesla if they can get ‘free’ energy every day,” contributed a third.

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