After reporting its second-quarter 2020 earnings, Tesla finally announced that it will be building its second Gigafactory in Austin, Tex. Located along the Colorado River*, this new facility will be home to the company’s highly anticipated Cybertruck and Semi, as well as the Model 3 and Model Y for customers on the East Coast. CEO Elon Musk also shared his plans and vision for the new factory during the earnings call. “We’ll have a boardwalk alongside. It’ll be an ecological paradise and it will be open to the public,” he said.
Besides Austin, Tesla was also looking at Tulsa, Okla., as a potential site for the facility. Tulsa offered to use a fleet of Cybertrucks as police vehicles, and even painted over its famous Golden Driller statue with Musk’s face and the Tesla logo.
However, Austin was an obvious choice after Travis County, which includes the city of Austin, agreed to Tesla’s requests for tax breaks. In early July, the county approved a tax break worth $14.3 million to encourage the electric carmaker to set up shop in Austin. Following that decision, the Del Valle school district also approved a $50 million tax break that will remove Tesla from any responsibility to fund local schools. This resulted in over $65 million in tax breaks for Tesla.
The new Gigafactory is expected to generate 5,000 jobs and will take some load off the company’s Fremont, Calif., plant. All Tesla vehicles sold in the U.S. are currently being built and produced in California. The much-anticipated Cybertruck, which debuted last November, as well as the Semi, were initially delayed until 2021. With the new facility confirmed to be exclusively producing both vehicles, enthusiasts might finally be getting more updates soon.
According to earlier financial reports, Tesla intends to start construction as soon as this year. Musk has already expressed that preparations at the site are already underway.
---------------
*The other Colorado River, not the one that goes through the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam.