Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) has started building Megapack 3 batteries at its new Brookshire, Texas, Megafactory, adding major production capacity as energy storage grows into a more profitable counterweight to the company’s electric-vehicle business.
Brookshire Expands Tesla’s Global Storage Footprint
"Megapack 3 starting production. Congrats Tesla Megapack team!" CEO Elon Musk wrote on X after Tesla’s storage division announced that the plant had begun operations 16 months after groundbreaking. Tesla designed the facility to produce 50 gigawatt-hours of Megapack 3 capacity annually.
The project expands Tesla’s grid-battery footprint beyond its Megafactories in Lathrop, California, and Shanghai. Under a Waller County tax-abatement agreement, Tesla committed about $44 million for building improvements and $150 million for manufacturing equipment. The factory could eventually create about 1,500 jobs.
The timing gives Tesla more capacity as utilities, renewable-energy developers and data centers seek batteries that can store power and release it when demand rises. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects developers to add 24 gigawatts of utility-scale battery storage nationwide in 2026, including 12.9 GW in Texas, or 53% of the planned total.
Energy Deployments Outpace Tesla’s Vehicle Growth
Tesla’s latest results show why the company wants more Megapack output. It deployed a record 13.5 GWh of storage products in the second quarter, up from 9.6 GWh a year earlier, a roughly 41% increase. Vehicle deliveries rose about 25% over the same period to 480,126, meaning storage volumes expanded faster than Tesla’s core EV shipments.
Energy generation and storage revenue rose 13% to $3.14 billion during the quarter as higher Megapack deployments offset lower average selling prices and weaker Powerwall volumes. The segment posted a 20.4% gross margin, above the automotive business’s 16.9%, despite warranty adjustments and product mix cutting energy margins from a year earlier.
Higher Margins Raise Megapack’s Strategic Importance
Across the first half, Tesla’s energy business produced a 28.7% gross margin compared with 18.7% for automotive operations. That gap underscores why Megapack has become strategically important as Tesla faces lower vehicle pricing, shrinking regulatory-credit revenue and heavy spending on artificial intelligence, robotaxis and robotics.
Brookshire will now test whether Tesla can turn surging storage demand into sustained manufacturing growth. The factory’s location inside the fast-expanding Texas power market gives it a front-row seat to one of America’s largest battery buildouts.
Benzinga Edge Rankings show Tesla stock scores poorly on the Momentum and Value metrics, but provides satisfactory Growth and Quality.
Price Action: Tesla shares were up 0.04% to $321.68 during pre-market trading on Thursday.
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