CNET Week in Review
As car companies go, Tesla is still very much wet behind the ears, but in terms of awareness and sales it must be treated very seriously indeed. CEO Elon Musk knows that the future is bright and so is making a big investment — after making it possible for others to make their own investments. The company is taking on an additional $1.8 billion in investments to help gear up for production of the company’s so-called “Gen III” car, the one that’ll come after the (recently delayed) Model X and should be far more affordable than the company’s current Model S.
More noteworthy, though, is a plan to build the world’s greatest battery factory. Dubbed a “gigafactory” by Musk himself, the plan is to build a plant big enough to make more batteries in 2020 than the entire world produced in 2013. That is quite aspirational to say the least, but so is launching a satellite into orbit, and Musk’s SpaceX has done that on numerous occasions. Look for the plant to begin construction sometime in the next year or two and, if all goes according to plan, it’ll be based somewhere in the southwestern US, …
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