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Tesla’s gargantuan Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada welcomed guests and select members of the press for a celebratory grand opening event last week. To be clear, it will still take a few more years before construction on the factory is 100% complete, but Tesla was comfortable enough with the progress it has already made to give the world a bit of a glimpse inside the massive structure.

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• The Gigafactory will be the biggest building in the world

The Gigafactory measures in at 5.5 million square feet, easily making it the biggest building in the world in terms of its physical footprint. The closest building to the Gigafactory is Boeing’s Everett factory in Washington state with a square footage of 4.3 million.

• The Gigafactory cost $5 billion to construct.
• Battery production levels will be “faster than bullets from a machine gun”

Once the Gigafactory is finished and operating at 100% capacity, Tesla boasts that it will churn out more lithium-ion batteries in one year “than were produced worldwide in 2013.”

• Construction workers are on the clock 24/7
• The Gigafactory will run on 100% renewable energy
• The Gigafactory roof is white for environmental reasons

The roof of the structure will be painted white in order to better reflect light, keep things cool, and ensure that the solar panels are as efficient as possible.

• The building was designed to be earthquake proof
• The Gigafactory foundation itself costs millions of dollars
• Tesla spent $15 million on steel
• Fireproofing + Electrical wiring $5.3 million
• The Gigafactory will employ 6,500 employees by 2020

Read full article a BGR