Where is Tesla's Next Gigafactory? Mexico City Could Be the Answer

Tesla has been announcing its intention to build new Gigafactories in other geographic areas of the world for quite some time. Among its most talked about sights are places like Canada, a second facility in China, and even Middle Eastern settings; however, the country that is apparently the most likely to host the new Gigafactory is Mexico.

Previous reports already supported this possibility, but now even the exact location is noted: it was published by Reuters, after Jesús Ramírez - spokesman for the Presidency of Mexico - gave the first guidelines to this international news agency. The new gigafactory could be located in Mexico City itself, more specifically in a new industrial park called T-MexPark, which was recently inaugurated by the country's president, Mr. Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It is located just 3 kilometers from the Felipe Ángeles International Airport.

"Tesla is considering investing in this area to be able to take advantage of the potential of AIFA (name of the city's airport)", he explained. This environment would be of vital importance for Tesla, since its shipments and distributions could be done by air, something not so common in the EV sector. Later, the same spokesman, Mr. Jesus Ramirez, also spoke with “El Heraldo de México” newspaper, along the same lines: "Tesla will invest there, in an assembly plant to export directly by air".

Reuters contrasted these statements with anonymous sources from the Administration, who would have indeed corroborated that this terrain had been shown to a Tesla team some time ago, but had not yet given any concrete answers about their future plans for it.

This report comes six weeks after learning that Tesla was considering settling in the border state of Nuevo León, near Monterrey; something that would give the factory the ability to be very close to the company's headquarters in Austin, Texas, right across the US-Mexico border. That seemed pretty much done after Elon Musk himself met with New Mexico Governor Samuel Garcia and his local economic development officials.

The initial project presented in Nuevo León included an investment of 1 billion dollars, with possible future expansions for a total value of $10 billion. At that time, it was not concluded which vehicles would go into production at the new facilities, but it is very likely that their operations will begin with the Tesla Model 3 or Model Y which will later give way to other models of an even more popular nature, such as the long-awaited “affordable” Model C (or Tesla Model 2, whatever final name is chosen). In any case, its implementation is not expected until at least the year 2026.

Source: reuters

All images courtesy of Tesla Inc.

Nico Caballero is the VP of Finance of Cogency Power, specializing in solar energy. He also holds a Diploma in Electric Cars from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and enjoys doing research about Tesla and EV batteries. He can be reached at @NicoTorqueNews on Twitter. Nico covers Tesla and electric vehicle latest happenings at Torque News.