Tesla will invest another $3.6 billion to expand its Giga Nevada project, including a 100-gigawatt-hour new factory to produce its 4680 battery cells, Kallanish reports.

This huge gigafactory is expected to produce enough batteries for 1.5 million light duty vehicles annually, the company says in a blog on 24 January. The investment will also cover the construction of its first high-volume plant for the Semi fully electric combination truck. The vehicle promises a driving range of 500 miles and energy consumption of less than 2 kilowatt-hour per mile.

To date, the company has invested $6.2 billion in the 37-GWh Nevada gigafactory, originally designed at a capacity of 35 GWh. The plant has produced over 7.3 billion cells, 1.5m battery packs, 3.6m drive units, and 1m energy modules since commissioned.

Tesla didn’t provide further details but said the new investment will lead to 3,000 new jobs. James Frith, principal at Volta Energy Technologies, a clean energy investment consultancy, expects the new gigafactory to be commissioned in 2025.

“I expect that these 4680 lines will integrate most of the advances that Tesla discussed during its battery day event in September 2020,” he says. “In particular, they will try to integrate dry electrode coating into cells with high silicon anodes.”

Chinese battery giant CATL is building a 100 GWh gigafactory in Hungary.

Last October, Tesla’s ceo Elon Musk said the company was “moving at top speed” to build 1,000 GWh of vertically integrated battery production capacity in the US.