A new South Korean video of the inside of Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory suggests Tesla is leaning towards South Korea as the location for the company’s upcoming Gigafacotry. Tesla is expected to announce the new location before the end of the year.
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Late last year reports came out quoting unnamed sources in the office of the South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol that suggest that the East Asian nation might be the sight for Tesla’s next gigafactory.
The Reuters report stated, "Chief executive Elon Musk said on Wednesday that South Korea was among its top candidate locations for a factory it plans to build in Asia. Musk had made the remark in a video call with President Yoon Suk-Yeol, adding that the company planned to step up cooperation with South Korea on supply chains, Yoon's office said.”
Reuters also directly quoted Musk as saying to Yoon Suk-Yeol “We expect to buy components worth more than $10 billion from South Korean firms in 2023 as we significantly expand supply chain cooperation with South Korean companies.”
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This report sent a flurry of excitement and buzz suggesting South Korea will be the sight of Tesla’s next gigafactory. Since then, Tesla has announced 2 new Gigafactories – one in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and another in Sparks, Nevada – these announcements have tapered the excitement for a South Korean Gigafactory.
However, Musk has promised before the end of 2023 that Tesla will pick one additional location as a site for the company’s next Gigafactory. Currently, there are several locations in the running which include, in addition to South Korea, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, a second Chinese location, and France.
Based on Elon Musk’s travels and public statements, people’s expectation for the location of Tesla’s next Gigafactory has swayed from one country to the other without any new location coming out as a clear favorite.
In order to get the most favorable deal out of the country, it’s in Elon Musk’s best interest to make Tesla’s leanings for the next Gigafactory location as vague as possible. As a result, it becomes difficult to assess where exactly Tesla is planning to build the next Gigafactory.
However, as the date to announce Tesla’s next Gigafactory draws near, lucky for us, today we have gotten our first hint that Tesla is leaning towards South Korea as the site for the company’s upcoming factory.
And, this hint is that Tesla has given a South Korean TV channel the most free access to film inside the company’s Shanghai Gigafactory. A car manufacturer giving access to a news channel to film inside its factory might not seem like a big deal however, Tesla is notoriously unaccommodating of the press.
Full Vid:https://t.co/qlJUC2wsgN
— Tsla Chan (@Tslachan) August 21, 2023
Famously, the EV maker has relinquished its entire PR department and does not respond to 99% of requests by the media.
Given this fact, it’s interesting that Tesla allowed a South Korean channel to film inside its factory. Not only that but, Tesla gave the South Korean channel so much freedom to film inside the factory that the host at one point in the video even remarks “I can’t believe Tesla is letting us film this freely.”
It appears with the unguided tour Tesla has allowed the South Korean channel (MOCAR) more access than even Tesla gave Xinhua, which is a Chinese communist party associated state-run news organization.
Although subtle, I believe this is an attempt by Tesla to drum up excitement in South Korea which would suggest that Tesla is at least leaning towards South Korea as the location for the company’s next Gigafacotory.
Currently, we have to rely on these sorts of hints to try and predict the location of Tesla’s upcoming gigafactory, however, in the next few months, Tesla will officially announce the next location which should clear things up much better.
As of now, this is all the information we have, however, we’ll be sure to keep you posted when we learn more about Tesla’s future plans. Until then, make sure to visit our site torquenews.com/Tesla regularly for the latest updates.
So what do you think? Excited for South Korea to be the site for Tesla's next Gigafactory? Also, using your own assessment which country do you think is Tesla leaning towards for the company’s upcoming Gigafactory? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Image: Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
For more information check out: Did We Just Get a Leak for the First Cybertruck Deliveries?
Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and The evolution of the EV space on a daily basis for several years. He covers everything about Tesla from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.
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