USA: 18 gigafactories
Despite being the country where Elon Musk pioneered the development of EVs and gigafactories, the US lags behind China and Europe.
This can be attributed, in part, to the lack of enthusiasm among lawmakers to incentivise renewable energy and EV uptake. Until recently, only a few states like California had their own incentive schemes.
However, EV uptake, and thereby gigafactory production, may accelerate in the coming years thanks to a brand new federal incentivesigned into law by President Joe Biden.
In addition to iM3NY’s gigafactory and the four US-based Tesla factories, it’s estimated there are 13 more on the way – bringing the total to 18 gigafactories in the United States.
Other countries: ?
There isn’t a lot of info about how many gigafactories have been built or proposed in most other countries, but there’s at least one in South Korea – while Australia, Japan and India all appear to have plans underway for their own gigafactories.
What does the future of gigafactories look like?
More and more countries are incentivising EVs specifically and battery power in general, and it’s clear by looking at China and Europe that these policies are working overtime to boost battery production – and by extension gigafactory construction. If US consumers and policymakers get on board, this will only accelerate.
Plus, we’ll eventually reach a tipping point where enough consumers have purchased EVs, solar home units and other battery-powered devices that government incentives will no longer be necessary to fuel growth.
So even if governments around the world scale back their incentive programs, we will continue to see a huge surge in gigafactory construction in the years and decades to come.
Bottom line
The future of gigafactory technology looks promising as more countries invest in this type of manufacturing process to produce cleaner sources of power for their citizens.
What does it mean to have an environmentally conscious country?
It means that you can expect lower levels of pollution, less carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and subsequently higher quality air quality overall.
Oh, and more jobs in a burgeoning sector.
With all these benefits on offer, what is there left to lose by investing in green technologies like solar panels or electric cars?
