Tesla just recently got its China factory operational, it’s already broken ground on a factory in Germany, and now it’s looking to build yet another factory—one Elon Musk is calling Cybertruck Gigafactory—in the U.S. The new factory will support construction of the highly touted and highly hideous Cybertruck, as well as production of the Model Y for distribution to the east coast.
Allegedly the company is looking to secure the land to build this one in Nashville, Tenn. According to a statement from Musk to the Wall Street Journal the new central USA factory will be decided by state incentives, a large workforce, and low logistics costs.
Scouting locations for Cybertruck Gigafactory. Will be central USA.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2020
Just a month ago, when he could find time away from his full-time meme posting job, Musk also asked if the company should build a new factory in Texas.
Giga Texas?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2020
But he also asked if Tesla should build a Rave Cave (?) underneath the factory in Germany, so take anything you see on his twitter feed with a grain of salt.
In the meantime, Musk is getting exactly what he wanted from the tweet as the Joplin, Mo. chamber offered 100 acres and $US50+ ($79)+ million, the Oklahoma Secretary of Commerce tried to woo him into a meeting, as did the Governor of Colorado. With tweets.
Elon Musk said as recently as May of 2019 that Tesla could run out of money in under 10 months if costs weren’t brought under control. This month would be ten months from that statement. I can’t really square the circle of a company that was allegedly circling the drain then and has the capital to build three new factories basically concurrently.
I know that Model 3 production has skyrocketed in that time, but where the hell did they get the money? I guess those interest-free loans from the Cybertruck pre-orders really helped the company get back on its feet.
Wherever the new Gigafactory ends up, I hope it doesn’t completely fuck that city’s housing costs and overtax its infrastructure like it has here in Reno, Nevada.