Tesla and Panasonic’s Gigafactory in the Nevada desert has now started making high performance cylindrical battery cells of the type used in its stationary storage and forthcoming Model 3.

EV manufacturer and battery specialist Tesla Motors has reported strong results with a return to profit in Q3 this year and expectations of this positive performance to continue into Q4.

Tesla’s second Master Plan will be mostly funded by sales of its vehicles, particularly the new electric vehicle, the Model 3, chief executive Elon Musk said during a soft launch of the enormous ‘Gigafactory’ in Nevada on Tuesday.

Registration opens today for Tesla’s Model 3, the longer range, cheaper electric vehicle (EV) that the company hopes will repeat the success of its existing luxury models.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has claimed that his company is already sold out of stationary storage products for next year before the first ones have even been shipped to customers.

A gold exploration and mining company has agreed to purchase a potential site for excavating lithium in Nevada, citing the “great deal of attention” brought onto the state by Tesla’s decision to locate its mammoth manufacturing facility there.

EV maker Tesla is looking to populate its stationary storage business, posting advertisements for more than 70 job openings on the company website.

Tesla’s much talked about Gigafactory should be up and running in 2017. PV Tech Storage spoke to analyst Dean Frankel of Lux Research about some of the details and talking points of the EV maker’s ambitious plan to hit ‘500,000 battery packs by 2020’.

Tesla’s lithium-ion ‘Gigafactory’ will be built in Nevada, after company officials including chief executive officer Elon Musk appeared alongside the US state’s governor at a press conference held yesterday afternoon.

Japanese consumer electronics giant Panasonic has partnered with Tesla Motors to construct batteries in the United States at the electric vehicle company’s new battery manufacturing plant, the Gigafactory.