导读:该工厂现在只建好了14％左右，但当全部完工时，将占地约1000万平方英尺，差不多是262个国家橄榄球联盟球场的大小。
SPARKS, Nev. (AP) -- It’s Tesla Motors’ biggest bet yet: a massive, $5 billion factory in the Nevada desert that could nearly double the world’s production of lithium-ion batteries.
美联社内华达州斯帕克斯市报道——这可能是特斯拉汽车公司下过最大的赌注：一个耗资50亿美元的大工厂将在内华达州的沙漠中建成，几乎可以使世界锂电池的产量翻番。
Tesla officially opened its Gigafactory on Tuesday, a little more than two years after construction began. The factory is about 14 percent complete but when it’s finished, it will be about 10 million square feet, or about the size of 262 NFL football fields. That will make it one of the largest buildings in the world.
在开始建厂两年多一点后，特斯拉周二正式公开了超级工厂。该工厂现在只建好了14％左右，但当全部完工时，将占地约1000万平方英尺，差不多是262个国家橄榄球联盟球场的大小。这将使其成为世界上最大的建筑物之一。
The factory is key to the future of Palo Alto, California-based Tesla. The 13-year-old electric car company, which has never made a full-year profit, wants to transition from a niche maker of luxury vehicles to a full-line maker of affordable cars, pickups and even semi-trucks. It also runs Tesla Powerwall, a solar energy storage business for homes and businesses.
该工厂对总部位于加州帕洛阿尔托的特斯拉的未来来说非常关键。这家成立13年的电动汽车公司从未获得过全年盈利，希望从豪华车的小众制造商过渡到经济实惠的轿车、皮卡车甚至小卡车的全系列制造商。该公司也经营“特斯拉防火墙”，一种供家用或者商用的太阳能存储业务。
The company says making its own lithium-ion batteries at the scale the Gigafactory will allow will reduce its battery costs by more than a third.
该公司称将以超级工厂的规模生产自有锂电池，这样可以使电池成本降低超过三分之一。
Most immediately, Tesla needs the batteries for its fourth car, the Model 3 sedan, which is scheduled to go on sale at the end of next year. At a starting price of around $35,000, the Model 3 will be Tesla’s least expensive vehicle, partly because of battery cost reductions.
最直接的原因是，特斯拉的第四代轿车——Model 3计划在明年年底开始销售。起始价格大约为35000美元的Model 3将是特斯拉的最便宜的车，一部分原因是电池成本降低了。
Tesla unveiled the Model 3 at the end of March. Within a week, more than 325,000 people had put down a $1,000 deposit to reserve the car. After seeing that level of demand, Tesla moved its production plans forward. The company now says it will make 500,000 vehicles per year by 2018, two years earlier than scheduled.
特斯拉在三月底推出了Model 3。一周之内已经有超过32.5万人交了1000美元的订金来预订该车。看到如此级别的需求后，特斯拉加快了其生产计划。该公司表示，到2018年，每年将生产50万辆车，比原定时间早两年。
To meet that goal, Gigafactory construction is proceeding at a furious pace. Inside the factory, Tesla’s partner, Panasonic Corp., is installing machines in sealed, humidity-controlled rooms that will start making battery cells before the end of this year.
为了达到这一目标，超级工厂继续以惊人的速度进行着建设工作。在工厂内部，特斯拉的合作伙伴松下公司正在控制湿度的密封房间里安装机器，这些机器将在今年年底前开始生产电池。
Panasonic is also shipping cells from Japan to the Powerwall business, which is operating in another section of the factory. Robots are used to place battery packs into home and office units, which store energy from solar panels and allow users to tap it during peak periods.
松下也从日本运电池到防火墙业务，这是工厂正在进行的另一部分工作。机器人用于在家庭和办公室安装电池组，这种电池组可以从太阳能电池板储存能量，并允许用户在高峰期间使用。
Outside, nearly 1,000 workers are laying the groundwork for the factory’s expansion, digging trenches and erecting steel supports in the hot, dusty valley. By the second quarter of 2017, 31 percent of the factory will be completed.
现在在户外，近1000名工人正在干燥炎热、尘土飞扬的山谷里挖沟、铺设钢支架，为工厂的扩张奠定基础。到2017年第二季度，工厂的建设将完成31％。
The factory’s name stems from "giga," a unit of measurement that represents billions. One gigawatt hour is the equivalent of generating one billion watts for one hour — one million times that of one kilowatt hour.
该工厂的名字源于“千兆（giga）”，这是表示十亿的计量单位。一千兆瓦时相当于一小时产生10亿瓦能量——是一千瓦时的一百万倍。
Tesla says the factory will be producing 35 gigawatt hours of batteries by 2018. That’s the equivalent to the entire world’s production in 2014. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the factory has the capacity to produce 150 gigawatt hours if it needs to. To put that in context, New York City uses around 52 gigawatt hours of energy per year.
特斯拉表示，到2018年，工厂将能够生产35千兆瓦时的电池，这相当于整个世界在2014年的总产量。特斯拉首席执行官伊隆·马斯克表示，如有需要，工厂产能可以达到150千兆瓦时。为了便于比较，纽约市每年大约能使用52千兆瓦时的电量。
Analysts say bringing battery production in-house, instead of buying batteries like General Motors Co. and other major automakers do, can help bring down costs, but also leaves Tesla exposed. If the Model 3 is delayed, for example, Tesla will have extra batteries on its hands and no way to recoup its costs.
分析人士表示，自产电池（而不是像通用汽车公司和其他主要汽车制造商那样购买电池）可以帮助降低成本，但也会让特斯拉过于暴露。比如，如果Model 3车型延迟上市，特斯拉手中将会积压很多电池，并且没有办法收回成本。
"They could be left with a lot of excess capacity in the near term," said Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst with Navigant Research. Abuelsamid says there’s also the possibility that advances in battery technology in the longer term could force Tesla to make expensive new investments.
“他们可能会在短期内留下很多过剩产能。”Navigant研究所的分析师山姆·阿伯萨米德说。 阿伯萨米德说，电池技术的长期进步可能会迫使特斯拉投资昂贵的新项目。
There are also competitors who could derail Tesla’s dreams. Chinese automaker BYD Co., which is backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Corp., also makes batteries and energy storage systems and is already building battery-powered buses in the U.S. The company hopes to bring low-cost electric cars to the U.S. in a few years.
也有想要破坏特斯拉美梦的竞争对手。中国汽车制造商比亚迪公司由沃伦·巴菲特旗下的伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司支持，也制造电池和能量存储系统，并已经在美国建立电池供电客车公司。该公司希望在几年之内把低成本的电动车普及到美国。
