Tesla Motors, the innovative electric car company, wants to be a bigtime automaker. To achieve that, it needs to produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles more than the 22,300 electric vehicles it made in 2013.

    Which means it's going to need a bigger battery factory. A much, much bigger one.

    On Feb. 26, the electric automaker revealed the first details for its so-called Gigafactory, a massive facility that will be designed to produce more lithium-ion batteries annually by 2020 than were made worldwide in 2013. At 10 million square feet, Tesla estimates that the plant will have the capacity to produce 50 gigawatt hours of battery packs a year, which will be used for its Model S luxury sedan and a cheaper third-generation vehicleintended for the mass market. By 2020, Tesla estimates the facility will be able to make enough batteries to supply 500,000 vehicles a year.

    The factory, which will employ about 6,500 people, is expected to reduce the per-kilowatt-hour cost of its lithium-ion battery packs by more than 30% by the end of the first year of volume production. It's nothing less than necessary for CEO Elon Musk's bid to make a car 50% cheaper than Tesla's luxury Model S, which starts at $70,000.

    创新电动汽车制造商特斯拉汽车公司（Tesla Motors）希望发展成一家大牌汽车公司。要实现这个目标，它需要生产出成千上万辆汽车，而不仅仅是2013年22,300辆的产量。

    这意味着特斯拉需要一个比目前规模大得多的新电池厂。

    2月26日，这家电动汽车制造商披露了关于“Gigafactory”的一些细节。特斯拉计划将“Gigafactory”设计成一家大型工厂，这家厂到2020年的预计产能将比2013年全球锂电池总产量还要多。新工厂面积为1000万平方英尺（约合93万平方米），预计每年可生产50千兆瓦时的电池组。这些电池组将用在Model S豪华轿车和一款价格较低的三代大众市场汽车上。预计到2020年，这个工厂每年可为500,000辆汽车供应电池。

    新工厂将雇佣约6,500名员工，预计在进入量产的第一年末，就可将锂电池组的每千瓦时成本减少30%。这一点对于公司CEO埃隆•穆斯克的目标来说可谓必不可少。穆斯克正在努力把汽车价格降到Model S豪华轿车的一半，而Model S的起价为70,000美元。

A possible location

    Since the announcement, speculation has run rampant about where the facility will be located -- and with whom battery manufacturer Tesla will partner.

    In its initial announcement, Tesla said it is evaluating 500- to 1,000-acre sites in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. But the company has said little else. (Responding to a Fortune inquiry, Tesla spokesman Patrick Jones declined to comment any further.) But according to Navigant Research analyst Sam Jaffe, there's one must-have that Tesla's new plant will need more than any other: a freight train.

    "The single-most important aspect is that it's near a rail line," said Jaffe, who specializes in the energy storage market. "These batteries are very heavy, and they have to ship them all the way to their plant in California."

    Put a rail line toward the top of the factory's basic requirements, and the list of possible locations narrows.

    "If you look at the Union Pacific line, they go right through El Paso, cut through New Mexico, through Arizona, and then up through Nevada," Jaffe said. "And look at their Fremont plant; it's right next to the rail line."

厂址选择

    消息公布之后，人们纷纷猜测特斯拉会将工厂设在哪里？它会与哪家电池厂商合作？

    特斯拉在首次通告中称，公司正在评估亚利桑那州、内华达州、新墨西哥州及德克萨斯州的500-1000英亩的厂址。除此之外，公司没有给出更多说明。（针对《财富》杂志的询问，特斯拉发言人帕特里克•琼斯表示不愿透露更多信息。）根据市场调研与咨询公司Navigant Research分析师萨姆•杰夫的说法，特斯拉设立新工厂需要考虑的首要条件是：货运火车。

    “最重要的一点是，新工厂必须建在铁路沿线，”专攻能量储存设备市场的杰夫说。“因为这些蓄电池十分沉重，而特斯拉需要把它们一路运往位于加利福尼亚的汽车制造厂。”

    如果将铁路沿线作为选择厂址的首要条件，那么备选厂址名单也就有了。

    “大家可以看到，联合太平洋铁路直穿厄尔巴索、新墨西哥州、亚利桑那州，再向上直插内华达州，”杰夫说。“再看看特斯拉的费利蒙工厂，这个工厂刚好就设在铁路沿线。”

Potential partners

    Tesla also said it will partner with a battery manufacturer as well as companies that supply the precursor materials (such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, and electrolytes) needed to make the batteries. Under the plan floated by Tesla, the partners will share the cost of the Gigafactory. Tesla will directly invest about $2 billion.

    Tesla has not yet named any partners. However, in the company's fourth-quarter earnings call last month, Musk did say the assumption is that its current battery cell supplier Panasonic would continue to be a partner.

    Panasonic spokesman Jim Reilly said the company, which also supplies Tesla with automotive electronics components, is looking into a variety of options to further strengthen its collaborative relationship with Tesla Motors. But nothing formal has been decided, Reilly said.

    Panasonic has had a relationship with Tesla -- first as a battery cell supplier, later as an investor -- since 2009. The company invested $30 million in Tesla in 2010. Last year, Panasonic agreed to expand its arrangement and supply Tesla with nearly 2 billion cells over the course of four years. The battery cells will be used to power the Model S as well as Model X, a sport utility vehicle scheduled to go into production by the end of this year.

    Still, Tesla has vetted other battery cell suppliers, Jaffe said. And it has certified other companies, including the Korean firms LG Chem and Samsung SDI and China's BYD. "Tesla has essentially given the specs of the cell they want built for its battery and have confirmed that [each] manufacturer is capable of doing it," Jaffe said.

    Which means Tesla could order battery cells from several suppliers -- though it is unlikely that the automaker will choose more than one manufacturer to partner with on the Gigafactory, Jaffe said.

    Other potential battery manufacturer partners include China's Lishen, ATL, and Sony -- a long shot, Jaffe said.

潜在合作伙伴

    特斯拉还表示，公司将选择一家电池厂商，以及电池原料（如锂、锂、镍、钴、和电解质）供应商进行合作。根据特斯拉的计划，合作公司将共同承担Gigafactory的成本，而特斯拉自身将直接投资约20亿美元。

    特斯拉还没有透露合作公司的名字。然而，在公司第四季度业绩发布会上，CEO穆斯克曾经提道，根据公司的设想，可能会继续选择电池供应商松下电器（Panasonic）作为合作伙伴。

    松下电器（它同时还为特斯拉供应汽车电子部件）发言人吉姆•赖利说，公司正在寻找各种方式以加强同特斯拉的合作关系。但双方还未做出任何正式决定。

    松下电器从2009年开始就一直在与特斯拉有合作——最开始是作为特斯拉的电池供应商，后来成为特斯拉投资人。2010年，松下电器为特斯拉投资了3,000万美元。去年，松下电器同意扩大供应计划，在接下来四年中为特斯拉供应约20亿块电池。这些电池将为Model S以及Model X轿车提供动力。Model X是一辆运动型多功能轿车，预计于今年年末投产。

    然而根据杰夫的说法，特斯拉同时也在审查其它电池供应商。特斯拉通过了对好几家公司的认证，如韩国LG化学公司（LG Chem）和三星SDI（Samsung SDI），以及中国的比亚迪汽车公司（BYD）等。杰夫说：“特斯拉实质上已经给出了预计生产电池的规格，也承认这几家厂商都具备生产这种电池的能力。”

    这一点意味着，特斯拉可以同时从好几家供应商订购电池——但杰夫说，特斯拉不太可能在Gigafactory项目上选择一家以上的厂商进行合作。

    其它有可能合作的电池厂商包括中国的天津力神电池股份有限公司（Lishen）、东莞新能源科技有限公司（ATL）和索尼公司（Sony）等——但杰夫说，选择这些公司的可能性很小。

Size is key

    But the capacity of the factory may be the most clever part of Tesla's plan to attract a battery partner. Tesla said the factory will have the capacity of 35 gigawatt-hours (GWh) per cell and 50 GWh per pack. The extra 15 GWh is the carrot Tesla is holding out to its potential partner, Jaffe said. Tesla is essentially guaranteeing that while most of the battery cells from the factory will go toward its next-generation model, it will still need to buy more.

    "Let's imagine you're a battery manufacturer and your big buyer comes to you and says, 'I want you to help me build a factory so I can make a product that you make today and cut you out of the supply chain,' " Jaffe said. "Why would you possibly do that?"

    Even if Tesla sells the 500,000 mass-market vehicles it desires, and continues to make the Model S and Model X, the Gigafactory should still have a remaining 10 GWh of manufacturing capacity left, Jaffe said. That remaining capacity could be used to support -- and expand -- its burgeoning stationary (as opposed to portable -- that is, cars) energy storage business.

    Tesla already supplies the California energy services company SolarCity with batteries for energy storage systems designed for commercial buildings. SolarCity has worked closely with Tesla for more than three years in its development of a stationary storage product, said Eric Carlson, SolarCity's senior director of grid systems integration. (Tesla's Musk is also chairman of SolarCity.)

    Carlson wouldn't comment on any future plans with the automaker except to say that he expected the partnership to continue. However, he did say that SolarCity sees significant demand for stationary energy storage and would expect that Tesla would also be excited about its market potential.

    Nevertheless, if Tesla expects to sell more than 10 GWh per year's worth of battery packs to the stationary storage market, the packs will have to be priced below $200 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), Jaffe said. Tesla has said that the lithium-ion batteries it buys from Panasonic are between $200 and $300 per kWh, but the current cost of stationary energy storage is much higher -- between $500 and $800 per kWh globally.

Next steps

    If Tesla aims to produce a mass-market electric car in three years, it knows it will need to accelerate the rate at which it drives down the cost of producing one. A massive, multibillion-dollar factory that unifies the disparate steps in manufacturing lithium-ion batteries is a step toward that. Will the economics make sense? Like Tesla itself, we'll only find out in time.

规模是关键

    然而，在吸引电池合作厂商的计划中，特斯拉最聪明的做法或许是设置新工厂的产能。特斯拉表示，新工厂产能为35千兆瓦时的电池单元及50千兆瓦时的电池组。杰夫称，这额外的15千兆瓦时是特斯拉用以吸引潜在合作伙伴的诱饵。特斯拉实际上已做出保证，虽然新工厂生产的电池大部分会用在下一代车型上，但它还需要从外部购买很多电池。

    “想象一下，如果你是一家电池制造商，你最大的客户跟你说，‘我想让你帮我建一座电池厂，这样我就可以自己生产电池，然后把你从供应链种踢出去’”，杰夫说。“那你何苦要帮他？”

    杰夫进一步表示，即使特斯拉如愿以偿，在大众市场卖出了500,000辆汽车，而且计划继续生产Model S和Model X，Gigafactory也仍然会有10千兆瓦时的产能剩余。特斯拉可以将剩下的产能用于支持及扩大蓬勃发展的固定式（相对于便携式汽车电池来说）能源储备业务。

    特斯拉已在为加利福尼亚能源服务公司SolarCity提供用于商用建筑能源储备系统的电池。SolarCity电网系统集成部门高级主管埃里克•卡尔森表示，公司在开发固定存储产品的过程中已经跟特斯拉保持了三年多的紧密合作。（特斯拉CEO穆斯克同时也是SolarCity的董事长。）

    除表达期待未来继续合作的愿望之外，卡尔森不愿就公司与特斯拉的合作发表更多评论。然而他也表示，SolarCity已经看到市场对固定能源存储设备的巨大需求，同时，它也希望特斯拉能看到这类产品令人兴奋的市场潜力。

    尽管如此，杰夫说，如果特斯拉想每年在固定能源存储市场卖出10千兆瓦时以上的电池组，就必须把电池组价格定在每千瓦时200美元以下。特斯拉声称，它从松下电器购买锂电池的价格是每千瓦时200到300美元，但现在固定能源存储设备的成本上升了许多——全球这类设备的生产成本在每千瓦时500到800美元。

后续计划

    如果特斯拉计划在三年之内将电动汽车投放到大众市场，就必须尽快降低电动汽车的生产成本。投资数十亿美元开设大型工厂，借此统一锂电池制造过程的不同环节，这是达成这个目标的第一步。这笔投资在经济上是否划算呢？与特斯拉一样，我们也只能拭目以待。（财富中文网）