page_title: Giga New York
section_title: Rationale
hierarchical_section_title: Giga New York / Rationale
caption_attribution_description: English: A prototype Solar Roof Tile made by Tesla/Solar City. Français&#160;: Prototype de tuile solaire fabriqué par Tesla/Solar City.
context_page_description: Tesla Giga New York is a photovoltaic cell factory leased by Tesla subsidiary SolarCity in Buffalo, New York. The factory, owned by the State of New York, was built on brownfield land remediated from a former steel mill. Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2016–17.
  In 2013, the site of Gigafactory 2 was planned as a clean energy business incubation center. As SolarCity acquired Silevo in 2014 and merged into Tesla two years later, the factory was planned. The factory, in a partnership with Panasonic, started limited assembly of photovoltaic modules in 2017 using imported Japanese PV cells. It began commercial production of modules in 2017. In 2018, SolarCity began production of individual solar cells. In late 2019 or early 2020 Tesla began commercial installation of version 3 of its "Solar Roof" product.
  By early 2020, Tesla had increased the number of employees at the factory to more than 1,500, but Panasonic planned to leave the solar partnership at the factory in May 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, employment at the factory decreased in the first half of 2020.
context_section_description: Before Tesla and Panasonic began their partnership in Buffalo, Panasonic already had 30 years of experience producing solar panels. Because SolarCity incorporated the manufacturing process that Silevo had intended to use for production, the partnership allows Tesla to outsource production and reduce its burden on debt. The technology used incorporates nanotechnology, an emerging sector in upstate New York that colleges and universities such as SUNY Poly and Erie Community College have developed programs and research in, with the latter offering semiconductor and nanotechnology programs specifically for employment at the gigafactory. The facility also takes advantage of tax incentives and leasable space from the State of New York. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also suggested that the company's solar panels could be helpful in humanitarian crises, such as rebuilding the electric grid of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
  In 2015, Solar City's CEO, Lyndon Rive, a cousin of Elon Musk, stated that the new facility would be key to creating a clean energy-manufacturing market, adding that expansion would not be possible at the Riverbend plant, but more likely in the immediate area. While SolarCity operated a production facility in Fremont, California, the Gigafactory provides capacity for 10,000 solar panels per day, equivalent to one gigawatt per year.
caption: Older version of Tesla Solar Roof (2017), produced at Giga New York
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