Tesla has yet to announce its final decision on whether it plans to build Model Y at its factory in Fremont, California or Gigafactory 1 in Nevada, but it has now reportedly started work to prepare for Model Y production in Fremont.
When Tesla launched the Model Y in March, the company started taking pre-orders and it said that the first deliveries would start as early as ‘Fall 2020’.
At the time, the automaker didn’t disclose its production plans for the new electric vehicles.
A month later, CEO Elon Musk addressed the plan to produce Model Y during Tesla’s Q1 2019 earnings call:
“For Model Y production, we are right now trying to decide whether Model Y vehicle production should be in California or Nevada and we expect to make a final decision on that very soon.”
The news has been surprising to some since the timeline to production is extremely aggressive for a vehicle program without a confirmed production location.
Now CNBC reports that “several current and former employees” are saying that Tesla has chosen the Fremont factory and they have started making preparations:
“Making way for Model Y production in Fremont will require Tesla to combine Model S and Model X production into one line, according to the insiders. These lines at the car plant take up a significant amount of floor space today, at least partly because the S and X are each made with a lot of parts.”
They referenced the fact that Tesla has recently been canceling factory tours and Musk said that it was because of “upgrades” being made to the factory.
CNBC also says that Tesla aims to start production of the refreshed versions of Model S and Model X with the new interior in September. We took an exclusive look at the refresh in this gallery last year.
Electrek’s Take
We were expecting Fremont. As previously discussed, it makes sense considering how many parts Model Y shares with Model 3.
Integrating Model S and Model X lines together, which is already partly the case, makes sense to help get the space needed to make Model Y, especially with the efficiencies and flat delivery numbers of S/X compared to mass market 3/Y.
As for the Model S and Model X interior refresh, we were the first to reveal the new design last year and at the time, we were told Tesla was planning to introduce it “early in the second half of the year.”
But that was a year ago at this point and things might have changed. But I think this report is credible.
We should have a much better idea of Tesla’s plans for Model Y and Fremont in the coming months.
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