Tesla CEO Elon Musk described the Gigafactory in Nevada as a product, calling it the “Gigafactory 1” – implying there will eventually be a “Gigafactory 2”. This second battery factory could end up being built in Germany according to comments made earlier today by Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel.Gabriel was speaking at an event at a Mercedes-Benz factory in Rastatt, Germany, and he confirmed (via Bloomberg) that government officials are in contact with Elon Musk over the possibility of building a battery factory in the country.
The Vice-Chancellor said that he expects Tesla to seek public funds like they did with the Nevada factory.
It makes sense for Tesla to invest in production capacity in Europe considering the continent is now a bigger market for the company than North America. Germany hasn’t been an important driver in this demand shift even though Model S sales in the country are up 104%, but the prospect of a large investment could help the company’s image in a market dominated by local automakers.
Tesla also sees Germany as an important market for its ‘Tesla Energy’ division. The company recently hired a top executive from the solar industry to lead the energy storage division in Europe and Africa.
Last month, the company moved its production line of Tesla Energy products to the Gigafactory in Nevada, where there’s plenty of room to grow. The current structure of the ‘pilot plant’ reportedly only represents 14% of the total 13.6 million square feet it will reach for its planned capacity of 50 GWh.
Gabriel didn’t offer any timeline if both parties were to go forward with such a project, which currently appears to only be in the early phases of negotiation.
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I’m from Germany and I would love if Tesla built another Gigafactory in my country 🙂 I think it would also make sense from a logistics point of view. Germany is located in the center of Europe and has almost equal distances to the other European countries. I really love Tesla and can’t wait until they release the Model 3 to finally have a car available in the lower price regions. Although I know that our car industry is very important for our economy, I absolutely hate their ignorance when it comes to electric vehicles. Sometimes it reminds me of Nokia.
In my opinion, the only German car maker who takes electric vehicles at least a little more serious is BMW. The i3 is designed from scratch to be an electric car. But still, it’s only one model so far. Here’s hope for an i5 soon 🙂
Besides, I really enjoyed the Dieselgate affair… Finally VW (and in general our whole German car industry) had to pay the price for not thinking ahead and further sticking with their old combustion engine. The saddest thing about it is probably that nothing will change. I don’t think that VW really sees this as a wake up call to finally ramp up the production of more EVs. I really hope that Tesla will gain a lot marketshare in the future, they truly deserve it!
“Tesla CEO Elon Musk described … “Gigafactory 1” – implying there will eventually be a “Gigafactory 2”. ”
No surprise. Watch the Powerwall event again. Elon predicts numbers like 50 gigfactories. I believe he even said 500.