Tesla Inc. has applied for a nearly billion-dollar expansion of its Austin, Texas, gigafactory.
According to filings dated this week with the Texas Department of Licensing and Registration, Tesla is planning an investment of roughly $717 million to add about 1.4 million square feet of space at the auto factory, for a total of about 5.6 million square feet.
The addition includes four new facilities, including a lab for battery-cell testing and manufacturing space. The filings indicate construction could begin as soon as later this month and be completed by February 2024.
The plans were first reported by the Austin Business Journal.
Tesla opened the Austin facility last April. A little more than a month later, CEO Elon Musk said the new gigafactories in Austin and Berlin, Germany, were “gigantic money furnaces” that were losing billions of dollars as supply-chain snags slowed production.
Tesla shares
TSLA,
have sunk 67% over the past 12 months, compared to the S&P 500’s
SPX,
17% decline over that time.