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Exclusive: Tesla (TSLA) is building its giant solar panel factory in Houston

Fred Lambert | May 19 2026 - 8:22 am PT

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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.<br>Advertisement - scroll for more content

The revival started quietly in late 2025. Tesla began producing its new TSP-420 solar panel at Gigafactory New York, and by January 2026, the company launched the US-made panel commercially as a rare sign of life for a business most observers had written off. But Buffalo’s capacity is modest, around 300 MW per year. That’s a rounding error compared to what Tesla says it wants to build.

Tesla solar panel production

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026, Elon Musk announced that both Tesla and SpaceX would independently build 100 GW per year of solar manufacturing capacity in the United States, covering the full supply chain from raw materials to finished panels. In March, CNBC reported that Tesla was in talks to purchase $2.9 billion in Chinese solar manufacturing equipment from suppliers including Suzhou Maxwell Technologies, with the equipment destined for Texas.

Now we know where in Texas. The Brookshire facility is where Tesla plans to anchor that 100 GW ambition.

Full vertical integration in Houston

Electrek has confirmed that Tesla is planning full vertically integrated solar manufacturing at the Brookshire site, not simple panel assembly. The operation will span the entire production chain: ingot growth, wafer slicing, photovoltaic cell production, and finished panel assembly. The company is building highly complex, cleanroom-grade manufacturing environments with more than $250 million in capital expenditure across multiple simultaneous facility builds.

Tesla solar panel production

That’s consistent with the $2.9 billion Chinese equipment deal CNBC reported in March. Suzhou Maxwell Technologies, one of the suppliers Tesla has been negotiating with, specializes in the exact type of equipment needed for vertically integrated solar cell production. The equipment was reported to be shipping to Texas.

The Brookshire site, located at the Empire West Business Park about 35 miles west of Houston, already has Tesla’s fingerprints all over it. Tesla leases Buildings 9 and 10, totaling 1.65 million square feet, and the development includes plans for an additional 600,000-square-foot building. The site is 100% leased to Tesla under a long-term agreement.

Why Houston makes sense

Co-locating solar manufacturing with the $200 million Megapack Megafactory creates real operational advantages. Tesla’s energy storage and solar businesses are increasingly intertwined. The company bundles Megapacks with utility-scale solar installations, and its residential Powerwall pairs with rooftop solar. Having both manufacturing operations on the same campus simplifies logistics and supply chain management.

Houston also offers advantages that Austin’s Gigafactory doesn’t: a major port for equipment imports (critical for receiving that Chinese manufacturing equipment), a deep industrial labor pool, and existing industrial infrastructure.

The scale of the ambition

Going from 300 MW at Buffalo to 100 GW is a 300x increase, on a timeline of less than three years. For context, First Solar, currently the largest domestic solar manufacturer, projects 17.7 GW of capacity by 2027. Tesla is aiming for nearly six times that figure. Total US solar...