Tesla Says Giga Texas Will Become North America’s Largest Cell Plant

Tesla is expanding 4680 battery production at Gigafactory Texas, with its cell manufacturing director saying the Austin operation will soon become North America’s largest battery cell manufacturing facility.

Michael Guilfoy outlined the push in a November 9 recruitment post on X. He said the team now supports four vehicle programs: Model Y, Cybertruck, Cybercab and the new Tesla Semi.

“To deliver this increased volume, our team is growing as we undertake a massive expansion of our production and will soon become the largest battery cell manufacturing facility in North America!” Guilfoy wrote.

The hiring push spans leadership, engineering and technician positions. Guilfoy highlighted nine types of leadership openings, including senior production and quality managers, engineering managers, and maintenance and production supervisors.

There is no completion date or new capacity figure in the post. The largest-in-North-America description is Guilfoy’s forecast, rather than an independently confirmed ranking of current output.

Tesla’s Q3 2026 update gives some context for the expansion. It lists installed annual 4680 cell manufacturing capacity in Texas at more than 40 GWh and says Tesla is increasing cell production to support Cybercab, Semi and higher Model Y volumes. Installed capacity is not the same as actual production.

As we covered in Tesla’s third-quarter earnings results, battery availability remained a limit on how quickly the company could increase vehicle output. That makes the cell ramp relevant well beyond the factory floor: multiple vehicle programs are relying on the same in-house battery platform as they grow.

The Semi business is also adding support infrastructure. Tesla has scheduled the opening of a Laredo Semi Service Center for November 12, following new megawatt charging stalls at the Port of Long Beach.

For now, the hiring post offers another sign that Tesla is putting more resources behind 4680 production. The next useful benchmark will be how much additional cell output the expansion delivers.

Which Tesla program do you think will benefit most from a bigger 4680 supply: Model Y, Cybercab or Semi?