Tesla is in ‘final stages’ of selecting site for European Gigafactory

Tesla has announced that it is in “the final stages” of selecting a site for a European Gigafactory and an announcement is expected by the end of the year.

CEO Elon Musk has been talking about a full battery and vehicle factory in Europe for a while now.

Several European countries have even launched campaigns to try to attract Tesla to their home market.

Tesla was supposed to confirm a location for a factory in 2017, but it never happened.

Last year, Musk said that Germany is the “leading choice” for a factory in Europe and he even specified that “the German-French border makes sense” for a factory near the Benelux countries.

Earlier this year, Tesla said that it is “accelerating” its effort to bring a Gigafactory to Europe.

The automaker wrote in its latest shareholder’s letter last quarter:

“We are also accelerating our European Gigafactory efforts and are hoping to finalize a location choice in the coming quarters.”

Now, this quarter, Tesla confirmed that it is in the “the final stages” of selecting a site for a European Gigafactory:

“We are in the final stages of our site selection process.”

The company also confirmed that the factory will produce both Model 3 and Model Y vehicles:

“Our European Gigafactory is expected to produce both Model 3 and Model Y.”

The announcement was made in Tesla’s Q3 2019 earnings report and in the conference call that followed, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla will announce a location by the end of the year.

Musk said:

“In fact, we will announce the location to that Gigafactory before the end of this year.”

Tesla has reportedly been looking at several specific sites across several German states and it also considered other countries.

According to local government officials, Tesla was specifically looking at Gigafactory sites in Lower Saxony earlier this year.

Earlier this summer, the CEO also said that he expects construction will be “well underway” within the next 12 to 18 months and will have the European Gigafactory operational by the end of 2021.