Tesla Is Building a Cybertruck ‘Gigafactory’ in the US, Elon Musk Says
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The Cybertruck is getting its very own American factory. Tesla has announced that it has begun scouting out locations in the US for its next so-called Gigafactory, and CEO Elon Musk says it’s where the electric automaker’s highly anticipated Cybertruck will be built.
As is his custom, the tech titan offhandedly tweeted out the news to his 32 million followers on Tuesday night. “Scouting locations for Cybertruck Gigafactory. Will be central USA,” he wrote, before later revealing that Model Y crossovers bound for the east coast will also be produced at the future factory.
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Since Musk’s tweet, more news has emerged about the possible location of the new factory. Tesla’s geographical focus may be narrower than the entire “central USA,” according TechCrunch. The automaker is reportedly in talks with Nashville officials to build the new factory in the Tennessee capital. The city has emerged as something of a hub for EV manufacturing in the US in recent years. The Nissan Leaf has been produced in Smyrna, a suburb of the city, since 2013, and Volkswagen will spend $800 million turning its Chattanooga plant into the base of its electric vehicle efforts in North America.
On Tuesday evening, Musk told The Wall Street Journal that several factors would go into choosing the location of the company’s fourth Gigafactory. “Incentives play a role, but so do logistics costs, access to a large workforce with a wide range of talents, and quality of life,” he wrote in an email to WSJ.
While production of Tesla’s vehicles initially began in a Fremont, Calif., plant that once belonged to GM, the company has added new production facilities as it has grown. In 2014, the automaker broke ground on its first Gigafactory near Reno, Nev., a sprawling 1.9 million-square-foot facility that purportedly uses renewable energy to produce battery packs and electric motors. Three years later, the company opened a second Gigafactory in Buffalo, New York, that produces solar cells and modules.
A third Gigafactory opened up in Shanghai, China, last year. The company’s first factory in a foreign country was conceived with the goal of breaking into the Chinese EV market, according to WSJ. Because of the coronavirus crisis and corresponding panic, the Gigafactory has yet to open, but the facility has been credited with contributing to a massive increase in the company’s share price over the last year.
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