Optimus Factory & Adv Chip Site Grow! New Work by Cortex 2! 13 July 2026 Giga Texas Update (7:55 AM)

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, this is Joe. Thank you for watching my Giga Texas construction update video.

[00:00:06]Well, another work week here at Giga Texas and a big news item came out late last week. In fact, it was related to that big news about Giga Texas that Lars Moravi teased on the Herbert Ang show a couple of weeks ago. And what this has to do with is that cyber cab rides for employees here at Giga Texas, these are also fully autonomous rides, are now being offered. And it's a great way for employees to be able to move around the site and probably be picked up off site and brought here for work and then be able to go home. So, this is another kind of a baby step, but another step in the direction of getting the cyber cabs ready for the robo taxi fleet. And I'm sure this is going to get them a lot more data. I do know that the employees are pretty excited about trying it out.

[00:00:59]So, hopefully many of them are doing so and maybe I'll get a chance to see some of them in action pretty soon. But speaking of which, over at the test track today, more action underway with testing of the cyber cabs on the track.

[00:01:15]Most of the area that they've been testing today is on those rumble strip uh kind of that inner loop and uh they've been doing that quite a bit since I arrived and I got some pretty good visuals of that uh in effect. So I hope that you enjoy some of these views here for the intro. There is a lot more to see, especially with construction around the site today, but I'll save that for the main uh video itself. One thing I do want to let you know is that uh SpaceX has confirmed that they are going to try to launch Starship no earlier than the 16th of July, which is this coming Thursday. So, it's uh really rapidly arriving. And because of that, I'm going to be heading down to cover that event. Not sure exactly when I'm going to leave, but I will probably be leaving on Wednesday, assuming that the 16th remains the date. And because of that, I won't be doing a flight here at Giga Texas. However, what I will be doing is a flight down at the lithium plant if at all possible. And hopefully that'll be a nice update. It's been about uh I don't know 9 weeks or so since we last saw what the lithium plant looked like. So, this should be a good update. Maybe see if they've done any work with the dirt infield uh locations around where the main factory is. That was the biggest thing that kind of stuck out to me last time that was needed. And maybe we'll see some more of the uh uh plant in action as well. So, without further ado, that's an update on my schedule and a little bit of cyber cab updates and action here at the site. So, for now, let's get in the drone, fly around, and see what Giga Texas looks like today. Possibly the last flight for the week here at the factory. If you would like to support my efforts, please consider using these links, which will be in the video description. If you are interested in Tesla products, you can help yourself and support me by using my referral code. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe buttons on my YouTube video as this helps as well. Thank you.

[00:03:19]My drones are ready and raring to go.

[00:03:21]Let's go flying over Giga Texas.

[00:03:52]Well, good morning from Giga, Texas.

[00:03:54]We're going to start off here on the north side looking back to the south across the entire site here, at least on the east side of the main highway. You can tell where the parking garage is, the uh parking lot, the east warehouse on wheels, the advanced tip fab site that is being worked on. Just to the south of the central support campus, which has got the cortex 2 die shop and the battery cathode plant. Of course, we have the electrical switch yard and the mega packs on the right of the screen.

[00:04:25]And below us is that concrete batch plant that was relocated here quite some time ago to make up space for the Cortex 2 construction. Speaking of construction, we're now approaching the north campus. This gives you a great view of where it is in relation to the central support campus. And what is going on today is a lot of earthwork, a lot of footing construction and steel assembly. Starting on the south end, what I'm trying to show you here is the amount of earth work that has been done and still is remaining to reclaim all of this south side of the uh uh north support or the north campus. And also, if you can tell right in the middle of the screen, the foundation for the very first time is extending south of where there used to be that connecting road is beginning to take shape here on this part of the site.

[00:05:21]And as we uh kind of maneuver around here, this gives you a pretty good idea of what it looks like. So far, there is a lot of geoexile membranes being placed on the ground at the bottom right with pill dirt. And of course, they're continuing to level off the grade.

[00:05:38]Working to the south and just to the north of where this uh extension is, we can tell that a lot of geop are at work.

[00:05:46]We're going to have to see this extend all the way through the land that they are reclaiming on that south end so they can prepare the ground, ensure it has the right strength to support all the footings. As we move farther to the north, this is a great look at four more of the footings being constructed right now. Some of them have a mud base ready to have the rebar cages put into them.

[00:06:09]Others have had recent concrete pores.

[00:06:12]And then the farther we go north, the more this has been uh filled in with gravel and prepared for the steel assembly. A lot of steel has been delivered. As you can tell, on the south end, there's several cranes now on this part of the site working and more on the north end. If you look across the uh steel structure here now it is eight column widths in length from north to south and it uh is almost the full width from perimeter grade beam to perimeter grade beam and they are starting to add even more of those steel columns here on the north end. Uh, also the, uh, amount of steel on the ground here is, uh, trying to keep pace with how fast all of the, uh, cranes are working, and this is just really giving us a great idea of how fast they intend to be moving with this structure. On the very north end, where the beveled corners of the building are quite evident now, almost all of the footings have been constructed. This is where the perimeter grade beam will be on this angled part.

[00:07:18]As I get in closer for this view, tell how the uh footings are kind of being spaced together and how those angled corners work. And some more of the footings being excavated here. Just two more footing uh for the columns to be added in those two rows uh for the north end of the building to be completed.

[00:07:39]Then I will probably put together a column grid map similar to what we saw with Giga Texas soon. and we'll be able to get an idea of uh just what the actual size of this factory is based on that column grid map and that will also give us an idea of where things are located inside. It's the same system that Texas or Giga Texas uses in their main factory. In fact, it's pretty common for most factories. I've moved over to Lone Tree Field just to take a look at all of the steel that is being stored here. Of course, this is kind of overflow waiting for the opportunity to move over to the main site, and I've been seeing trucks deliver constantly today. They were arriving throughout my entire time flying the drone. So, this is what this uh staging yard looks like.

[00:08:27]More of the tree debris on the kind of center of the screen waiting for mulching. Of course, the extended dirt uh uh soil and the grade just to the north of the northwest uh trailers and some more of the items being stored here next to those red tanks for the diesel fuel station. There's more earthwork down below the drone at the bottom of the screen. More steel being stored here next to these workshops. Speaking of steel and workshops, this one is getting the second half assembled today. And we've already got half of the roof installed. The rest of the steel structure is coming together. It looks like there's at least two receiving doors, possibly two regular doors for uh people on either side of this end of the building. And uh just what the entire structure looks like. This looks like it's definitely much more permanent than the rest of the workshops. As I come back towards the site, wanted to show you the earth reclamation below us uh right at the bottom of the screen and how the footings look here in the middle part of the site. Also, just a different perspective on the steel structure. The cranes are all active today. If you watch closely, you'll be able to see them moving around. And this is a better shot of showing how there are eight column uh kind of squares already made.

[00:09:53]So that the length of the building is eight columns long so far with this steel structure. That's uh approximately 320 ft of length so far. And that's uh somewhere um probably close to about uh 100 or so meters in length give or take.

[00:10:13]And that's going to be variable. That just depends on the column spacing. And I think that's about 40 to 45 ft each.

[00:10:21]That'll be something that I will try to get a little bit better um information on so that we can estimate the entire structure length and size as it continues to grow. As I mentioned here, as we pass the geoexile, the geopirs, the geoexile membranes are being placed.

[00:10:36]Dirt is being filled in and slowly the uh valleys are rising up to match the tops of the flattened hills. Then the reason why there's these linear hills and valleys is because this is part of the sand and gravel mining. That is the process that they would use throughout this entire section. This is very reminiscent of what the main factory had to reclaim before they were able to build it back almost six years ago. As I pull away on the northeast side, just looking back towards that central support campus, a lot of the graded area around the trees and here is River Roads extension. The pipes have now been all installed. All of everything's been back filled and the two lanes are starting to reemerge where the medium would be as well. So, this is making a lot of great progress. So, I'm going to maneuver here around on this side of the site, kind of looking back from where we came, and we'll resume the narration here pretty soon, uh, after we fly a little bit to the south and around the, uh, crash testing facility.

[00:12:04]I pulled kind of away from that uh battery cathode plant just to show you generally what this entire side of the site looks like. Below us is where Tesla Road will eventually connect with the River Roads extension. Of course, there's more of these geopers and testing equipment for the peers. The bottom of the screen, I think that's so that they can test the strength of the peers once they are made and validate that the uh foundation for the advanced technology chip fab which is under construction behind the drone is making progress. The crash test dummy facility is definitely coming along. They still have some scaffolding around where the HVAC system is uh located. So, probably still some more work to be done. Plus, the door was not installed. Uh but I know that that is coming along and they are looking forward to being able to start using that for the crash test dummies and other uh devices that they use as part of the crash testing. On the right, you see the top of the Tesla semi. That's the refresh one which is just inside the door here on the north end of the crash test facility. You can also see those vehicles most of which are cyber cabs next to the black fence on the right hand side of the screen. Um also we can see how these workshops look like that temporary platform. No crane is not operating right now. So nothing is being added in at the moment I was flying but we have been seeing equipment going inside there. A good look at the material staging yard at the bottom of the screen and how it is kind of becoming contiguous with all of the work that is being done here on the north end. Of course, the red tanks for the diesel refueling station for many of the work trucks around the site. As we come back into the infield between the battery cathode plant on the left and the Cortex 2 on the right, wanted to show you the amount of work that is being done in this clearing. It continues to see a lot of pier work and also on the left hand side of the screen concrete work at least uh what looks to be a mud base being placed down. So I would expect to see rebar cages being uh constructed and installed into this excavation on that south uh end. You can see some of the workers right now. Give you a closer view after we maneuver around all of these workshops here at the bottom of the screen. As we get back into the construction site, uh you can get a better idea of the size of this excavation and its shape looking at the workers. Again, this looks like it's a mud base, which is basically just put down to protect the uh rebar and allow a better surface to work with before the actual foundation is poured. There's a better look at the workshop on the right, the uh east side of Cortex 2, the two chilling units, and of course the uh workshops on the bottom left of the screen, and more of the materials are starting to show up, including pipe segments at the bottom of the screen, most likely for that second chilling plant. I did notice on yesterday's or last videos that there was these items at the bottom of the screen. They appear to be the u uh work tool chests. They've been moved from out inside the building outside. So that may suggest that there's a lot of uh final assembly being done on the inside of Cortex 2. Another potentially good sign at the progress that they are making just out of view inside the building. Here's what the work looks like preparing for more of the mega packs on the west side of the building. More of those beams have been added to the screwtype peers. Those will be the bases for the mega packs. Crews are on the roof putting in some duct work that may be for the uh cable trays that will go over the parapit wall and connect into all of the transformers and electrical equipment that you see on the platforms here. As we maneuver around this side of the site, see the drainage ditch on the bottom of the screen. Also, that's next to where conduit was installed. Speaking of which, just to the south of these workshops, more of the conduit. And even more here, this is what connects into the electrical switchyard and those uh white trailers on the right. And this is uh looks like it's getting pretty close to the point where they will have all of the cables pulled through the conduit, which will be great to see because that'll allow the mega packs for the second half to be installed. This is what some of the materials are looking like here, stored in these two sections, one on either side of the power lines. Of course, some of this was relocated from the east side to make room for that advanced technology chip fab. So, I kind of maneuvered around, showed you the parking lot. This is the temporary trailers for Tesla offices. And at the top of the screen, you can get a good idea of the new trailers, more of which have just arrived. And of course, the outline for the roads that have been uh recently put onto the ground, marked in red. This is going to be quite the substantial trailer uh setup. And what the purpose of this exactly is, I'm not sure, but there are permits for this trailer complex being and they've been just recently filed with the city of Austin. As we get to this construction site, of course, this is where that advanced technology chip fab joint venture with SpaceX is located. The main foundation is starting to take shape on the right hand side of the screen. It's kind of looking like a rectangular format is taking place uh and emerging, especially with all the gravel and the water trucks. There are no beveled edges showing up yet on that construction site. According to the render, the uh new chip fab will look very similar to a scaled down Giga Texas main factory that you see at the top of the screen with the beveled edges. So until we see those starting to materialize, I think the building will continue to extend up through where all of these workshops are and where the recycle center is. On the south end is bounded by this water retention pond. More of the work is being done at the base of the pond to prepare it for the liners. And of course, the retaining walls are virtually completed now all the way around the perimeter. This is a good idea or a good view here at the bottom of the screen of how that uh work is being done and the preparation around the walls for that liner. As we pass over the recycle yard and of course the workshops on the right hand side of the screen, this is a better close-in view of how this uh foundation is starting to take shape. As I mentioned, it doesn't have the beveled edges yet, and there's no guarantee that it's not going to get wider than what we see right now. So, I'll continue to monitor this and without a better rendering other than the original one that we got only showing half of the building, uh it's really hard to tell for sure what it uh will finally uh look like as far as the uh dimensions for the building. As I maneuver over the east warehouse on wheels, looking towards the south, I wanted to show you the cleared area with all of the dirt that has been brought in. It's now pretty much level. Looks like they're bringing in black pipe and possibly HDPE pipe for temporary storage. And here's another look from the west side of this water retention pond. And there's just one more section at the bottom of the screen. It looks like needs to be done for that retaining wall to match what they've done here with the outflow channel on the left.

[00:19:28]And then it will be ready for the aligner. Of course, uh what that will look like as we fly over this material staging yard on the right is a larger version of this lined pond that is empty and has been empty for several weeks now. I don't know what the disposition for this pond will be. Uh looks like there's a lot of debris at the bottom that would need to be cleaned out for sure. As I kind of pan around here on the east side of the main factory, wanted to look at the exit point for the cyber cabs. There were none at the time that I flew, which is not necessarily unusual since it's early on a Monday morning. We do see many uh parts of these equipments uh items on the ground that are being used for adding into the production lines inside this part of the building. Some more work here around these receiving doors, plus some of the materials. Uh it looks like some of the silver package has been uh uh unpacked and being ready for recycling. Of course, that brings us to this large opening. At the moment I was flying, we don't see any work being done, but of course, they're reconfiguring that concrete apron and a lot of work being done on the inside of that part of the building. As we pass all the castings for Model Y's at the bottom of the screen and the bag house filtration plant, we can see cyber cab castings on the left bottom of the screen next to the road and a lot more items for melting down at the melt center to make more castings. In fact, I saw more trucks arriving with those aluminum wheels um after I had finished flying and uh they were bringing of course more of that in so that they can keep that supply of aluminum to make the castings.

[00:21:14]Here's sort of the staging lot for painting uh stands and also cyber cab uh uh I call them the bucks. And next to this part of the road is all of these cyber truck castings. So, this part of the site is very busy on the outside and with the number of castings that they're having to do with multiple different models. Now, uh it's significantly different than what we saw at uh Giger Berlin since a lot of those are now being able to be handled on the inside of the building. Here, there's just so many more. And you can see the results of that at the 4680 part of the factory.

[00:21:53]More uh pipes have been delivered. a lot more debris on those bins and I know a lot more work is being done on the inside building out more capacity on the roof. This is what some of these materials look like. There appear to be blue fan units that have been lifted up and stored temporarily. Um, they've been here for a little while, so I don't know where they're going to be installing them, but I will keep watching to uh hopefully get a glimpse of that and we'll have a better idea of where they are going and what the purpose of those are. As we return to the ground level, show you the recycling that's going on with the cans for the 4680s. does appear to be a lot of them. And that could also be another um indication of the amount of work that's being done to test and commission some of the new production capability inside the factory. That's still some speculation, but it is interesting the amount of cans that we are seeing after all of the construction has been underway for quite some time.

[00:22:54]As we approach the main entrance of the building, on the left hand side of the screen is where the exit point for the Model Y's are, and I was fortunate enough to see one coming out at the time that I was flying. I kind of pan the drone around and watch partially as it drives to the south along the road. You may be wondering, why are the flags at half staff today? And I think that's because of Senator Graham that passed away unexpectedly over the weekend. And of course that gig of Texas is uh honoring him as they do for many of the distinguished uh uh people that are serving in government if they do pass away. So that's the the reason why the flags are at half mass today. As we continue to fly to the south along the west side, briefly stop here just to show you the amount of trucks that are active near the south end and also coming out of that uh kind of driveway through the building. So that is uh definitely seeing a lot of uh activity and work. Also answers that yes, they can bring semi-truckss through that exit point through the factory. Here's a great view of the south end, the three emergency tunnels and the concrete walk path. Of course, the cyber pond. And one of the other things I wanted to do is while I'm here, kind of maneuver and show you the fork in the road again. Uh while I do this, I'll put up a small uh video clip from the Cyber Cab uh announcement that uh is being opened up for the employees. You can see exactly where that part of that video was taken.

[00:24:30]It was right here at that intersection.

[00:24:32]So, it's pretty cool. Now, nearby here on the left hand side of the screen coming into view is where more of the horizontal drilling is underway. And we've been watching this for a couple of weeks now. You can tell the pit. You can see the bar and the drill is uh prepared to continue that drilling. They're going to make a large bore and then pull through a HDPE pipe that will extend from this side of the site underneath River Road and the Colorado River. And it will kind of uh work its way over to a uh similar location for some of the equipment just to the south of the Colorado River. and you'll be seeing that coming into view here at the bottom of the screen very soon. Also on the right hand side of the screen is a look at some of the extensive pipe work that is underway on this part of the site as well. And to me it looks like it's working its way along Fwell Lane, which is the road that uh parallels the uh the uh Colorado River and goes underneath the bridge. And it uh has this new roadway that has just recently been paved. This is near this clearing at the bottom of the screen where they have kind of this uh water uh management manifold that it looks like it is completed now. So other than the road work and some landscaping, all of this work is completed except for maybe some of that pipe work that I'll keep watching to see how it works its way to this part of the site. Great view back to the main factory and some of the areas that we viewed earlier in the video. Of course, now we're on the west support facility, the warehouse on wheels, the end of line, the outbound lot, the big staging yard, and now the large test track. You can also tell they are busy with cyber cab testing on the track today. And they are using those uh linear lanes that have different kinds of rumble strips for doing that noise, vibration, and harshness testing. also doing some active noise calibration as we've talked about in the past. But I think this time I'm just going to bring the drone down and we'll fly around and follow some of the uh vehicles driving around the track and just uh kind of appreciate the work that they are doing.

[00:26:52]Before we uh just watch the vehicles, you can see where the larger uh almost like cobblestones but using bricks are being laid down. And this is for additional testing.

[00:27:16]Heat. Heat.

[00:27:25]Heat.

[00:27:40]Heat.

[00:28:05]All right. So, that's what the activity looked like here early on the Monday morning. I'm going to bring the drone up to a higher altitude just so you can get appreciation of the number of cyber cabs that are driving around. probably about 15 or so on the track at this uh moment in time and where part of the track that they are using which is that center oval on the right hand side of the screen at the operations and kind of marshalling yard. Uh this is what it looks like today. You can see more of the cyber cabs are on their way out for testing.

[00:28:37]Those two white uh rounded top tents are actually sort of uh on-site maintenance facilities. One of them has a single post lift so they can lift up the cyber cabs if needed and the other one has some other testing equipment in it. So it's a pretty fullfeatured testing operations that they have here even though much of it is temporary. As we get to this part of the site, you can see that they are unpacking a lot of crates, more materials at the bottom of the screen and the supercharger workshop is quite busy. Um they are making a lot of superchargers and they are being used all over the the surrounding area and we keep hearing about more and more superchargers being added around uh and I think many of them are coming from this part of Giga Texas. Of course the transformer storage not much to say right now. I don't think there's been any changes since my last video. Uh the outbound lot still looks fairly full.

[00:29:34]Uh, a lot of the vehicles were moved off uh, site over the weekend for normal transportation operations, but not as many as I thought might happen. Uh, it's kind of unusual to see this many on a Monday morning. So, um, they may be either limited by the number of vehicles or just their delivery schedule, but nevertheless, there's still quite a bit of vehicles here. This is where the Mega Charger is being extended. This is supporting the Tesla Cyber Tesla semi-truckss, excuse me. And there is uh strong likelihood we're going to see several more of the refreshed semiis brought here and operating around the site and this will give them more charging capabilities. Of course, the direct delivery center has been busy uh delivering a lot of vehicles to clients.

[00:30:25]In fact, on the right hand side of the screen is many of the vehicles that are just waiting for the clients to pick them up. And here next to the end of line, more of the cyber cabs parked in the lane on the left and many more here on the outbound lot with the transport truck getting ready to move. Now, I've had some people ask, uh, how come they're arriving in a lot of places and we haven't seen them on trucks? Well, it could be that they're using rail. They have a rail head about 15 miles north of Giga, Texas, and they take the vehicles up there, load them on the trains, and transport them that way. But it also could be covered storage. We have seen covered vehicles or covered trucks picking up the vehicles in the past too.

[00:31:06]So they use a variety of different kinds of transportation mechanisms and vehicles and that could be the reason why. I did notice that there was a cyber truck and a cyber cab getting ready to test on this track. So I thought I would just follow along uh this cyber cab. You can see the rumble strips, different kinds of bump strips as well. And all of the vehicles are put through this particular track. It ends with this figure 8. And this is uh whether it's Cyber Cab, Cybertruck or even the Model Y's, they all use this track as part of the uh final checkouts before they are ready for transportation. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed uh just seeing uh one of these vehicles on a complete track uh loop. And of course, this is very different than the test track that they're using for additional testing. As I maneuver here to the south end, see more vehicles arriving on the upper right into those sorting lanes, including a cyber cab. Uh these cyber cabs, uh some of them have been here for a little while, but they've maneuvered or moved out a large number of them.

[00:32:17]There's about half as many here as there was on uh Friday when uh I did my last video. So, the inventory does continue to change out uh and uh where they're going and what they are being used for.

[00:32:30]I think they're just uh just getting them around the country and testing and preparing for robo taxi. So, that'll be it for today's video. As a reminder, this may be my last Giga Texas video for this week because of Starship flight 13 coming up on the 16th of July. If that changes, I will let you know. I'm monitoring that closely. But uh until then, thank you very much for watching and for your support. I hope you enjoy this long pullback. Uh we can see where everything that we vis visited today is located in relation to the main factory and of course the test track with the activity on the bottom of the screen. As always, thank you very much for your support. I appreciate it. Have a great week.

[00:33:32]Green.