Tesla has reported a massive increase in energy storage deployment in Q1 2023, thanks to its new Megafactory producing a lot of Megapacks.
The company’s energy storage business doesn’t get nearly as much attention as its electric vehicle business. And that’s for a good reason – the former is still only a fraction of the latter.
But it is just as important for the transition to a sustainable energy economy because it enables better use of renewable energy like solar and wind.
And while it’s not as big as the electric vehicle business, it’s growing quickly.
Today, Tesla released its Q1 2023 financial results, confirming a massive 360% year-over-year growth in energy storage deployment.
Tesla attributed the growth to the production ramp at its new Megafactory in California:
Energy storage deployments increased by 360% YoY in Q1 to 3.9 GWh, the highest level of deployments we have achieved due to ongoing Megafactory ramp. The ramp of our 40 GWh Megapack factory in Lathrop, California has been successful with still more room to reach full capacity.
In the Q1 financial release, Tesla also shared a picture from inside Megafactory Lathrop:
During a conference call following the release, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that there’s still a “way to go” for the factory to reach 40 GWh of annual production capacity.
The company recently announced another Megafactory to be built in Shanghai.
In the shareholder letter today, Tesla confirmed that “many” more Megafactories would be coming:
This Megapack factory will be the first of many. We recently announced our second 40 GWh Megafactory, this time in Shanghai, with construction starting later this year.
With the ramp-up in California and the new factory coming to China, Musk said that energy storage growth would outpace its vehicle growth.
Tesla confirmed having deployed 3,889 MWh in energy storage during the first three months of the year:
That’s up 360% over the same period last year. While the number includes both Powerwall and Megapack, the latter is believed to represent the vast majority of deployment.
The energy storage business is slowly starting to become a larger part of Tesla’s overall business, with just over $1.5 billion in revenue last quarter.