Breaking Ground in May: Tesla’s Plans for Mexican Gigafactory
During last week’s Tesla Investors Day, Elon Musk had a “One more thing” moment, unveiling the location for Tesla’s new Gigafactory in the Monterrey area of Mexico.
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It has been several months since most Tesla fans were expecting the announcement of the next Gigafactory as Elon Musk stated that it would be disclosed at the end of 2022.
The location is not a surprise, as there has been some news in recent weeks about Tesla choosing the Nuevo Leon area in Mexico for its next facility.
Why Mexico
During Investors Day, Dave Lee had the opportunity to ask a Tesla executive why they were building a new factory so close to the Texas facility instead of expanding the current one.
The reason is that the Mexican Gigafactory is expected to produce vehicles for markets outside of the US, specifically Mexico, Central America, and South America, which are not yet covered by Tesla.
Other key reasons for choosing this location could be:
- The Monterrey area has many car suppliers.
- It is close enough to Austin, where Tesla’s headquarters are located; just a one-hour flight away.
- This region of Mexico is well-known for having good engineers to recruit.
- Mexico is a key country in the Americas due to its many trade agreements with the USA and with countries in Central and South America. These agreements make exports cheaper and easier.
Factory Size
As we only have the renders from the presentation, it is difficult to measure the size of the new factory.
According to Reuters, Tesla has purchased approximately 4,200 acres of land from private owners. To put this into perspective, the land is almost twice the size of Mexico City’s International Airport. This area is also almost 70% larger than Gigafactory Texas’ land, which has been mistakenly reported as the new factory being almost double the size of GigaTexas’.
Upon examining the factory renders, it appears that there is a different layout, as…
