Tesla's Gigafactory paves the road to the renewable energy future

Facebook/Tesla Motors

Tesla's Gigafactory paves the road to the renewable energy future
(Image credit: Facebook/Tesla Motors)

Elon Musk just unveiled details of Tesla's "Gigafactory" — a giant-scale battery manufacturing facility that will pump out huge quantities of lithium ion batteries, as used in Tesla's electric vehicles.

This should mean cheaper batteries in electric vehicles.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

[P]ower storage is the key to unlocking widespread renewable energy. For renewables to work on scale, they need to be able to provide a continuous current flow, something difficult to achieve when the wind isn't blowing or sun isn't shining. [Business Insider]

This could be explosive news for traditional power companies. With solar energy already falling rapidly in price — and set to match coal on price in the next decade — reliable, cheap battery storage is the final piece in the renewable energy jigsaw puzzle.

Explore More

John Aziz is the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate editor at Pieria.co.uk. Previously his work has appeared on Business Insider, Zero Hedge, and Noahpinion.