Come to Elon Musk's 'Grand Opening' Party in a Probably Unfinished Factory

If you’re a Tesla owner who spent the past year diligently convincing your friends and family to join the club, clear your schedule for July 29.

The electric automaker recently mailed out invites to a grand opening party for its battery-producing Gigafactory, located (like a Bond villain’s lair) in the desert outside Reno, Nevada. The chances of guests being wowed by a fully operational factory humming with workers busily cranking out EV batteries is doubtful, though.

The letters, confirmed as legit after one was posted to Reddit, promise a swanky shindig in the $5 billion, 5.8 million square foot building. Stay at the Whitney Peak Hotel, folks — you’ll get a killer rate!

It’s an exclusive event. Only owners who referred more than five customers to the automaker get an invite.

Still, the term ‘grand opening’ needs a Gigafactory-sized grain of salt. Sure, Tesla plans to ramp up production to 500,000 units a year by 2018, and CEO Elon Musk is busy flinging money at potential problems with feverish gusto. That doesn’t mean guests at the July 29 party are going to see the finished product.

According to Bloomberg, the Gigafactory was only 14 percent completed at the beginning of the month, with 90 percent of existing interior areas under construction. Tesla representatives said that despite the accelerated schedule, vehicle batteries won’t roll out of the factory until the end of the year.

Gigafactory production is key to getting the Model 3 rolling out the door of Tesla’s California assembly plant on time. Musk wants at least 100,000 units of that model built by the end of 2017.

A lot of work can be accomplished in two months (see any World War Two engineering project as an example), but Musk’s Gigafactory soirée probably has more to do with shoring up public confidence in his company’s abilities than anything to do with concrete and steel.

[Sources: Bloomberg, Fortune] [Image: Tesla Motors]