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Tesla Gigafactory 1’s rooftop array expands with new solar panel clusters

[Credit: Joshua Mcdonald]

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Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada has always been intended to be powered entirely by renewable energy. Aerial images of the facility taken earlier this year revealed that the company began installing several clusters of solar panels on the factory’s roof, though construction of the solar arrays was halted after the sixth cluster was completed. That said, Tesla appears to have resumed work on Gigafactory 1’s rooftop solar array, adding six new clusters to the roof of the sprawling facility recently.

Teslarati recently obtained aerial images of the new rooftop solar panel clusters being installed in Gigafactory 1. Continuing from the work started earlier this year, the new clusters of solar panels are installed on the north end of the facility. Images of the recently built parking lot north of Gigafactory 1 also show a number of containers and semi-trailers.

Aerial images of the Tesla Gigafactory as of August 28, 2018. [Credit: Joshua Mcdonald]

Gigafactory 1 is designed to feature an expansive 70 MW solar array on its roof. A handout of the facility given to guests at a previous investor event stated that Gigafactory 1’s solar array would likely be the largest rooftop installation in the world, particularly when the planned 13-million-square-foot facility is completed.

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“GF1 is an all-electric factory with no fossil fuels (natural gas or petroleum) directly consumed. We will be using 100% sustainable energy through a combination of a 70 MW solar rooftop array and solar ground installations. The solar rooftop array is ~7x larger than the largest rooftop solar system installed today,” Tesla’s handout read.

Elon Musk recently provided an update on Gigafactory 1’s transition to fully renewable energy, stating in a recent tweet that the facility will be 100% renewable and powered by Tesla Solar at the end of 2019. This aggressive timeline is classic Musk, and it was released roughly at the same time as work on the facility’s rooftop solar array resumed.

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As impressive as the Nevada Gigafactory is today, the facility is actually still less than 30% complete. Gigafactory 1 currently has a 1.9 million square foot footprint, with roughly 4.9 million square feet of operational space across several floors. The footprint of the building itself has not changed over the past two years either, as the company has largely focused on growing and optimizing the facility from within since the Model 3 ramp took center stage.

That said, signs are emerging that Tesla might be looking to expand Gigafactory 1’s physical footprint soon. The construction of the new parking lot north of the factory, for one, suggests that the company might be making way for some construction work west of the facility, which happens to be a parking lot used by employees today.

Gigafactory 1 is one of Tesla’s most pivotal facilities. Tasked with the production of battery packs and powertrains for the Model 3, Gigafactory is responsible for ensuring that Tesla meets the demand for the electric sedan. Late last month, Panasonic, Tesla’s battery partner, also noted that it would be increasing its manufacturing capacity by 30% to address the increasing demand for batteries caused by the Model 3 ramp. According to a report from 103-year-old Japanese news agency Nikkan Kogyo, Panasonic will be adding three new cell production lines for lithium-ion batteries in Gigafactory 1 at the “end of 2018.”

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know

SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.

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SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.

At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.

SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation

 

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The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”

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Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”

Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.

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Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.

While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure

The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.

Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet

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Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.

Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.

As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.

Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.

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Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days

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Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.

Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.

On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.

The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.

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The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.

Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.

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Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.

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