Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk attends an opening ceremony for Tesla China-made Model Y program in Shanghai, China January 7, 2020.
Aly Song | Reuters
Tesla will build its newest Gigafactory near Austin, Texas, Chief Executive Elon Musk announced during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday.
The area takes up about 2,000 acres and will be roughly 15 minutes from downtown Austin, Musk said. He said the factory will be an “ecological paradise” and that it will be open to the public.
“We’re going to make it a factory that is going to be stunning it’s right on the Colorado River. So we’re actually going to have to have a boardwalk over you, hiking, biking trail. It’s going to basically be an ecological paradise,” Musk said.
The site will be used to build the company’s Cybertruck, its Semi and the Model 3 and Model Y for the eastern half of North America, Musk said.
Musk also added that Tesla will continue to grow in California, where it will build the Tesla Model S and the Model X for global deliveries and the Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y for North America.
“Texas has the best workforce in the nation and we’ve built an economic environment that allows companies like Tesla to innovate and succeed,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said following the announcement.
“Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas will keep the Texas economy the strongest in the nation and will create thousands of jobs for hard-working Texans. I look forward to the tremendous benefits that Tesla’s investment will bring to Central Texas and to the entire state.”
Travis County, where the new car plant will reside, voted earlier this month to give Tesla tax breaks worth a minimum of $14.7 million to build the plant to bring jobs to the area. Tesla employs about 10,000 people at its only U.S. car plant today in Fremont, California.
