Electrek has learned that Tesla (TSLA) is building its massive new solar panel manufacturing operation at its facility in Brookshire, Texas, near Houston. The factory will be co-located with the Megapack Megafactory Tesla is already constructing at the same site.
A source familiar with the plans pointed us to the Houston location, and Electrek was able to independently confirm it. This is the first concrete sign of where Tesla plans to build toward its 100 GW annual solar manufacturing target.
From SolarCity to 100 GW: Tesla’s long road back to solar manufacturing
Tesla’s solar manufacturing story has been a decade-long saga of broken promises and modest restarts. When Tesla acquired SolarCity in 2016, it inherited a factory deal with New York state worth nearly $1 billion in public subsidies. The state built Tesla a massive facility in Buffalo in exchange for commitments to create 1,500 factory jobs and invest $5 billion over 10 years in New York.
That factory was supposed to become the largest solar manufacturing plant in the Western Hemisphere. It didn’t. First, Tesla off loaded solar panel production to Panasonic before the Japanese manufacturer pulled out in 2020. For years afterward, the Buffalo facility was mostly used for Supercharger components and Autopilot data labeling. Tesla’s solar deployment dropped so low the company stopped reporting it as a separate metric.
