Tesla is getting ready to buy in Texas
Tesla has set its sights on a particular plot of land for its planned next US plant near the Texas capital Austin. US media reports that the electric car manufacturer has already bought land in Travis County were, however, later corrected by Elon Musk on Twitter.
Tesla has an option on the property but has not yet exercised it. In mid-May, media reports citing insiders said that Tesla had decided on Austin and wanted to build the first Model Y there this year.
That the probability is very high that Tesla will build the Cybertruck Gigafactory (in the new plant the electric pickup is to be built starting in 2021) in Texas is shown not only by Musk’s tweets but also by documents published by the Texas Court of Auditors. They already contain quite concrete plans for the construction of the factory in Travis County. According to these plans, the work is supposed to start in summer.
Tesla purchases Texas land, indicating Cybertruck factory will be built near Austinhttps://t.co/uTvHLVaIhy
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 18, 2020
However, since the contracts have not yet been signed, the city of Tulsa in the state of Oklahoma is also still hopeful. Tulsa had also applied for the new Gigafactory and is still in the running as a possible location for the plant.
Ultimately, it will depend on the subsidies granted to the city to decide who wins the bid. According to the advanced plans, Tesla seems to favour Texas, and earlier tweets from Elon Musk also point to this – in the dispute over the Corona-related plant closure, Musk had even threatened to move the company headquarters from California to Texas.
But Tesla is probably still demanding far-reaching concessions, which is not unusual for such large-scale projects – in concrete terms, it seems to be about 68 million euros in property taxes, where Tesla is seeking a reduction. After all, the investment volume is to amount to a good one billion dollars and create around 5,000 jobs. Whether and when the company and politicians will agree, however, cannot yet be foreseen. As is well known, things can happen very quickly at Tesla, but the negotiations may not lead to a result.
We are considering several options
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2020
According to Techcrunch, Tesla is also considered an exception to a law in Texas that has made business in the state very difficult for the car manufacturer: In Texas, it is forbidden for car manufacturers to sell their products directly to consumers – an independent dealer must be involved. Tesla, however, is fully committed to direct sales, which has not been permitted in Texas until now.
However, the fact that public insinuations of Musk do not have to be binding, but are possibly also a well-placed distraction, was evident when the site was awarded in Europe. While Musk had commented on locations like Saarland, he didn’t say a word about Brandenburg.
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