Elon Musk says that Tesla plans to invest over $10 billion in Gigafactory Texas and will eventually employ 20,000 workers.
Tesla is expected to start Model Y production at Gigafactory Texas in Austin any day now.
The new factory is critical to Tesla’s expansion plans in the US.
Currently, Tesla sells every car it can make in the US, and it has delivery timelines of close to a year out for some of its most popular vehicles.
All Tesla vehicles currently sold in the US are made at its Fremont factory in California, which can produce about 500,000 electric vehicles per year.
Gigafactory Texas is expected to more than double this output once it’s fully ramped up, but that’s a few years away.
The automaker is going to start with Model Y, which is Tesla’s most popular vehicle, at the new factory.
Tesla has been guiding a start of production by the end of the year.
With the imminent start of production in the background, there have been talks about the ~$60 million in incentive that the local government gave Tesla to build the factory in Austin.
On Twitter, CEO Elon Musk responded by claiming that Tesla plans to invest as much as $10 billion in the factory over time and directly employ over 20,000 people:
“Giga Texas is a $10B+ investment over time, generating at least 20k direct & 100k indirect jobs.”
Recent filings revealed that Tesla was spending $1 billion on the project, but that’s just for the phase of the new factory.
Once Tesla deploys Cybertruck and Tesla Semi production at the factory, the investment is expected to greatly expand.
Furthermore, the automaker recently officially moved its headquarters at the site, which is expected to expand beyond manufacturing operations over time.
Tesla had previously mentioned 10,000 employees, but now Musk suggests that Tesla will directly employ as many as 20,000 people. Worldwide, Tesla now has over 100,000 employees.
Here’s the latest drone flyover of the construction project as of yesterday, December 15:
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