Tucson is still hoping to be the site for what Tesla calls the "gigafactory" even though the company announced in a letter to shareholdersThursday they broke ground at a site near Reno, Nev. last month. Tucson issued a building permit for the factory.
The building permit doesn’t designate a specific site or address, but set aside 5 million-square feet for the factory. For a comparison, the new Intel Chip Factory in Chandleris 1 million-square feet. Tesla CEO Elon Musk told shareholders the company is planning to break ground on multiple sites and the final location of the factory won’t be chosen for the next few months. Musk maintains that the Reno site is still only the potential final location, even though he said to investors on a conference call Thursday the ground preparation in Nevada is complete.
“Before we actually go to next stage of pouring concrete, though, we want to make sure have things sorted out at the state level," Musk said. "That the incentives are there that make sense and are fair to the state and Tesla."
Musk said that puts the ball in Nevada’s court. The factory would have 6,500 employees and open around 2017. Tesla also announced a finalized partnership with Panasonic to make the batteries. Tesla said Tucson is still in the running for the gigafactory site.
