I thought some anons might find these interesting.
I found several things to be interesting, including that Tesla is establishing their production facility for building Megapack 3 and Megablocks near Houston, Texas in Waller County. Tesla is taking over a 1-million-sq-ft building that it already held the lease on at the Empire West industrial park in Katy, Texas.
One Tesla executive said the facility would build up to 50 Gigawatt-hours per year in Megablock battery / transformer capacity. A different article says 40 GWh per year.
Here’s a few points to consider;
Tesla claims fast on-site installation. Tesla’s VP of energy and charging, claimed that Tesla can deploy 1 GWh in 20 business days with this new Megablock configuration. One of these blocks holds 20 megawatt-hours of power, which can be discharged for up to four hours at peak capacity. Scaled up for a large project, 248 megawatt-hours can fit into an acre of land. 1 GWh would take up 4 acres of land.
Tesla is taking orders for Megablocks now and expects to ship starting in late 2026, manufacturing them near Houston, with lithium-iron-phosphate batteries from multiple sources.
The Megablocks each weigh 86,000 per box, and 75% of that weight is battery cells. They are building them as densely as possible without going over the weight limit or size limits that triggers expensive specialized shipping protocols.
Why does the U.S. suddenly need to build up to 50 Gigawatt-hours per year in battery capacity that can be deployed via national highway system and installed at cities within a few days?
Rapid installation isn’t necessarily a concern for long-term needs (like solar power battery backup or wind energy storage)… but instead you’d build the battery system on-site. You wouldn’t care about easy quick transportation and setup if the batteries and transformers will be set in place for a decade.
Think about the average city requirements; Most small cities in the U.S. use between 2 to 10 Gigawatt-hours per day. Salt Lake City, Utah: Consumes approximately 6 GWh per day. Boise, Idaho: Consumes approximately 9.2 GWh per day Los Angeles, California: Uses approximately 75.23 GWh per day New York City, New York: Consumes roughly 142 GWh per day
OK then, why would we need a facility that can build up to 50 Gigawatt-hours per year in easy to transport and rapidly deployable battery power with transformers and computerized controls?
In 2025, the United States generated a record 853,210 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity from wind and solar combined.
Wind Power generated 464,000 GWh in 2025. Solar Power generated a combined 389,000 GWh, with 296,000 GWh being from utility-scale solar.
If the reason for building the battery storage is to improve efficiency of solar and wind power storage, this is just tossing a pebble in the electrical pond.
In 10 years, the new Tesla facility would have built up to 500 Gigawatt-hours in deployable Megablock battery capacity. That’s great, but after 10 years, it still only provides battery backup for 1 : 1,700th of the nation’s renewable energy production. It’s not enough to make a difference.
I see this as more of a SHTF scenario. If New Orleans or Memphis or Biloxi ever went dark for some unexpected reason, this looks like a rapidly deployable solution. The MegaBlocks don’t have to be placed in one or two large locations. They can be distributed to strategic points in the local electrical grid.
If SHTF in certain areas, it would instantly disrupt communications including cell phones, internet, first responder communications, radio comms, hospitals, power at prisons or law enforcement facilities, traffic controls, possibly some military functions, etc... . Imagine being able to prestage battery backups regionally that could be deployed within hours to those locations within the state or major cities. That flexibility and instant backup power makes the U.S. electrical grid a far less vulnerable target for adversaries.
I talked with several electrical engineers about these. While they agreed there are legitimate needs for large battery storage systems within areas of the electrical grid, they argued that those battery backup systems should be permanently installed in those grid locations.
They were confused about why these Megablocks would have to be on trailers, designed for quick highway deployment, rapid install and can be disconnected and moved easily to new locations within a few days notice. The official story for why these are needed doesn't quite match the capability they have for rapid install & relocation.
It's hard to stump good electrical engineers, but the SHTF scenarios are the only explanation that makes sense based on the design and ease of linking dozens of Megablocks together to provide enormous amounts of battery power.
Isn't there still a supply issue with transformers?
Maybe this is seen as a stopgap measure to deal with damaged transformers or other temporary issues like natural disasters.
Rechargeable batteries are DISPOSABLE.
I already answered this in another post. The USA has pulsed laser weapons that use gigawatts of instantaneous power. They need a portable power system to provide that. (No, I don't have inside information but I can use logic.)
I understand the military or cities might need these for purposes when the electrical grid goes down. But, isn’t t more important to build new electrical generating plants whether nuclear, coal or hydro? Those batteries will need recharging.