Here's A Look Inside Of Tesla's Gigafactory That You Don't Have To Get Arrested To See

Getting a glimpse of Tesla's new Gigafactory 1 is a pretty big deal—police even arrested a journalist for trespassing (and allegedly ramming security with his Jeep) in October. But thanks to a photographer who recently visited the factory, you can catch a few looks at it without having to go through all of that trouble.

The massive battery plant in Nevada broke ground in 2014, and Tesla expects to produce enough batteries to build 500,000 cars per year by 2020. The company originally planned to begin cell production on 2017, but moved that date up to the end of 2016 upon a shareholder announcement in November.

The place remains essentially under wraps for now, despite "repeated acts of trespassing" and, uh, general drama. That drama includes the aforementioned journalist, whose employer disputed Tesla's claim and said that security did the ramming (among other things). It's a short and storied history—that's for sure.

Even when the Gigafactory was simply a concept, it created quite the stir. Tesla Motors head honcho Elon Musk managed to get $1.4 billion from the factory's home state of Nevada with an elaborate presentation, and some real-estate folks out of Reno sent a drone to check out the progress in May.

With all of the efforts going into this thing (and into seeing it), it's refreshing to look at a few cordially acquired shots of the new factory in its natural habitat—no trespassing required:

(On a less-related note, can I live on a street called "Electric Avenue"? I would have so many friends. Maybe.)

Contact the author at alanis.king@jalopnik.com.