A Gigafactory, California Style? Tesla Seeks To Double Size of US Auto Plant

There is nothing small about the ambitions of Tesla Motors and its CEO Elon Musk.

The brash California carmaker, planning the auto industry’s fastest production increase and mid-way through construction of the world’s largest battery plant, is seeking permission to double the size of its sole auto-assembly plant.

The city of Fremont, California, on Oct. 13 is to review Tesla’s request to add up to 4.6 million square feet of new structures to the existing 4.58 million already in use at its factory in the Bay Area city. The proposed new buildings would be added to property Tesla owns surrounding the plant and an additional 25 acres it wants to purchase. They would be used mainly for warehousing parts and materials to support plans for a vastly higher level of vehicle production, the carmaker said in materials filed with Fremont’s Planning Commission.

If fully built out under Tesla’s new “Master Plan” for the Fremont factory site, employment would eventually grow by a third to 9,315 workers from about 6,200 people currently, according to the proposal, which doesn’t lay out a specific time frame.