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Tesla’s 4680 Kato Rd. facility has a top 10 capacity, and it’s not even close to finished
Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed some details about the electric automaker’s 4680 cell plant last week. After stating that the facility is “probably in the top 10 battery cell factories on Earth despite being a pilot plant,” speculation began about how massive Tesla’s new facility that sits just across the street from the Fremont production facility is. Although it is in the top 10, it’s not even close to finished.
Tesla’s introduction of the 4680 battery cell came in September 2020 at the Battery Day event. Musk and others outlined the company’s roadmap for global EV dominance through the most important part of an electric car: the cell. The new cell has 500% more energy, six times the power of the old 2170 cells, and also offers dramatic range increases for more drive time between charges. It was truly revolutionary because Tesla is already the most notable company in electric cars.
With a considerable lead in the EV sector, Tesla was effectively announcing, “eat our (sustainable) dust” after showing the new 4680 cells. Some were skeptical, believing that the new cell wouldn’t be available for some time. Musk immediately silenced those doubts, indicating that the new cells had been deployed in working vehicles for months.
Credit: Tesla
The point is, the Kato Road facility, as it is widely known as, is one of the largest facilities in the world. While we are not sure what the current capacity is, if it is a top 10 facility in terms of capacity, we can speculate how big it may be.
According to Argus Media, the 10 largest battery cell plants range from 24 GWh per year to 70 GWh per year. The largest, an LG Chem facility in Wroclaw, Poland, has the 70 GWh capacity, leading BYD’s Qinghai, China plant by 10 GWh. Tesla and Panasonic’s joint venture at Gigafactory 1 in Nevada is a 35 GWh per year facility, making it the fifth-largest plant globally.
Credit: Argus Research
Because Tesla’s Kato Road facility is a pilot plant, we can likely assume that it is within the bottom half of this list. Especially with Gigafactory 1 being the fifth-largest, it is very likely that Kato Road is simply not producing as many cells or as much battery capacity as Giga 1, but it’s not to say that this won’t happen. The issue is that Tesla is still battery constrained, even with a large-scale facility in Nevada and with several third-party manufacturers pumping cells to the automaker at a massive rate. Kato Road will contribute to the solution to the constrained problem, and the facility will likely be significantly larger than Giga 1, considering the projects that Tesla plans to fulfill with the 4680 cells, the largest being the Tesla Semi.
The Semi is still not ready for production, Musk said on the Q4 Earnings Call last week. “We will have cells group in ourselves for Semi when we were producing the 4680 volume. But for example, Semi would use typically five times the number of cells that a car would use, but it would not sell for five times what a car would sell for. So it kind of doesn’t make…it would not make sense for us to do the Semi right now,” Musk said. The issue is cell availability, and since the Semi is going to equip Tesla’s newest 4680 project, it is safe to assume that Kato Road still has some expanding to do. If it is already a top 10 facility, yet it is still not ready to take on the massive Semi task, along with all of the other vehicles it will eventually fulfill, Kato Road may become a top 3 facility.
Ultimately, Tesla requires more cells. With no plans to eliminate purchases from third-party suppliers in the near-term, Tesla wants to increase purchases from those suppliers. CATL, Panasonic, and LG Chem could supply Tesla with more batteries moving forward, even with the Kato Road facility’s expansion and ramping up. The fact is, Tesla isn’t done solving the battery constraint issue, and it could battle with it for years to come. However, it won’t stop production from increasing because more cells are becoming available almost every day through supplier deals, increased outputs, and in-house manufacturing advancements, all of which make Tesla the company to beat for the foreseeable future.
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.
Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.
But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:
“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”
Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.
Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”
Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value.
The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power and mass to space.
And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow.
But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2026
Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.
Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.
What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
