Joe Tegtmeyer has shared a new construction update for Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory Texas with drone footage from early in the morning on Friday.
As he has done before, Tegtmeyer stitched together and compiled a visual flyover of the facility, along with a detailed explanation of the progress on the site.
One of the biggest highlights of the flyover is a burgundy primer-looking Model Y test body that was delivered to the on-site paint shop.
Tegtmeyer said this could be a primer for a red or burgundy colored car, but could also just as well be Tesla trying out a new color of some kind.
The YouTuber noticed that the test body did not have a floor, indicating that Giga Texas-assembled Model Ys will indeed use structural battery packs made up of 4680 battery cells. The Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, is going to house a battery production facility as well.
Also spotted were a series of trucks delivering CEDiNSA modular paint shop equipment to the facility, almost certainly intended for the on-site paint shop.
Tegtmeyer went on to note that there is expansion work going on in the parking lot area to the east, which is being stretched towards the southeast corner.
Gigafactory Texas covers an area of over 8 million square feet and, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, will span “almost a mile long” once it is fully constructed and operational.
Gigafactory Texas will be producing Tesla’s long-anticipated Cybertruck and the all-electric Model Y crossover, as well as electric vehicle batteries.
According to a report from earlier this week, Tesla is “pushing hard to begin production at Austin and Berlin” by January 26. Musk said in October that the Cybertruck would begin production at Giga Texas sometime in 2022, but Reuters reported on Thursday that initial production was being kicked back to 2023.
