The Mexican state of Nuevo León still believes that the previously announced Tesla Gigafactory is coming despite a recent change of plans.
Tesla officially announced Gigafactory Mexico back in March 2023, and until recently, we were wondering what was the hold up to start production after the automaker said it wanted to move fast.
In October, Tesla confirmed that it was pumping the brakes on the project amid concerns about the global economy.
CEO Elon Musk said that the project would happen, and Tesla is ordering “long lead items” for it, but the timing would depend on how they see the economy recover. In the meantime, the automaker prefers investing in Texas.
But on the Mexican side, things have kept moving forward.
The Nuevo León secretary of economy, Iván Rivas, announced late last year that Gigafactory Mexico has received all its needed permits to start construction and secured roughly $135 million worth of incentives for the factory.
Top comment by Tom D
The economy seems to be Elon Musk's preferred excuse to cover up the fact that the delay has more to do with the fact that Tesla simply can't generate enough sales from its two mass appeal vehicles to justify opening another factory. And since Tesla doesn't appear to have any additional mass appeal vehicles in the pipeline, I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
More recently, Rivas was asked about whether he still believes that the Tesla factory is on its way despite Tesla’s recent layoffs and shift from manufacturing new vehicles on its unboxed platform, which was the platform that Tesla planned to build in Mexico.
He said that he is still in communication with Tesla, he believes the factory is still happening, but he can’t say when (via Milenio translated from Spanish):
We have not had any change in signal, we also work hand in hand with them, for example right now in the incentive contract the communication is very close, we continue working, the only thing that I could not say and that is not defined, is when they are going to start, but Tesla is coming, Tesla is coming.
On their side, the government official says that they are still investing in the infrastructure to enable Tesla to build the Gigafactory:
We continue to work a lot with them on what we somehow committed to, which was in the incentives that were already accepted, this had to do with infrastructure, we are working on expanding the Monterrey – Saltillo highway on the free highway so that it is three lanes So that it can be an easy exit, we are working on some bridges to be able to enter and leave the property where they are, and we are working with the treated water infrastructure part.
Furthermore, the US elections play a role in this entire situation as former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump said that he would impose tariffs on electric vehicles built in Mexico, which could throw a wrench in Tesla’s plans.
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