Elon Musk has stated that Tesla’s factory might not necessarily be in the US anymore. He is also considering options in Canada and Mexico for a new North American plant.
Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk held a company-wide meeting with employees. Electrek obtained a recording of the meeting, which included a Q&A with workers. During the Q&A, an employee asked Musk where Tesla’s next factory in the US is going to be located.
Musk said that he hasn’t made the final decision yet, but it can be expected that it won’t be in the US.
“We are looking at sites, but we are considering some site options more broadly in North America, so including Canada and Mexico, and the US as well.”
The CEO made it clear that the company is looking for sites but at the same time, he did make it clear that the priority in North America right now is to ramp Gigafactory Texas to volume production.
Musk said during the meeting:
“The priority is definitely getting Giga Texas up to volume production and it’s difficult to get to volume production. It is much more important that we get Texas to volume production than to find a new site, but we are looking…”
Setting up the new facility all scaled up will not be easy because the Texas-built Model Y is equipped with Tesla’s new 4680 cell and structural battery pack. Tesla needs to ramp up production of the new cell and of the new electric SUV with the updated structural battery pack architecture.
Tesla has previously stated that it aims to achieve volume production at Gigafactory Texas by the end of 2022.
There is still a chance that the next Tesla factory might again be in the US but it seems like it will be in Mexico.
The employee specifically asked where in the US is going to be the next Tesla factory, and the CEO quickly said that the search was more about North America, and then specifically mentioned Canada and Mexico.
Canada has all of the natural resources needed to build batteries and a competent workforce. It could make a good location for the next Tesla Gigafactory too.
