Tesla teases Reno with a Gigafactory
Update: CNCB reports that Tesla has chosen the Reno, Nevada site for the location of its “Gigafactory.”
Electric car manufacturer Tesla has started work on a huge new battery factory in Reno, Nevada, but don’t let that fool you. Reno may not end up with the factory and the 6,500 jobs it is expected to create.
Tesla started building in Reno, even though its new “Gigafactory” may not actually be completed there.
On a recent earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said he might start similar construction on one or two other sites. The company is also looking at locations in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.
“Before we actually go to the next stage of pouring a lot of concrete though, we want to make sure we have things sorted out at the sort of state level, that the incentives are there that makes sense,” Musk said, adding “on the Nevada side, at this point the ball is on the court of the governor and the state legislature.”
Tesla wants the eventual host state to chip in 10 percent of the factory’s $4-to-$5 billion price tag. While it negotiates, the car maker says it’s worth construction costs to get the factory up and running as soon as possible.
“Any potentially duplicative investments are minor compared to the revenue that could be lost if the launch of Model 3 were affected by any delays at our primary Gigafactory site,” the company wrote in its recent investor letter.
“It’s pretty unusual for them to be actually starting construction on a site,” says Tim Bartik, an economist for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, though he says shopping around for a good deal from states is common.
Still, states should approach these types of deals with caution.
“People should realize that incentives are not a free lunch,” says Bartik. “They do involve costly resources.”
Local officials need to analyze what kind of wages the company will pay or the types of suppliers it might work with.
“Until recently, most states weren’t doing this kind of analysis,” says Josh Goodman, with the Pew Charitable Trusts Economic Development Tax Incentives Project. “Sometimes, they might do the analysis on a program that was getting attention because there was a lot of problems there.”
But many of states are wising up, Goodman says, passing laws and requiring periodic reviews of their incentives to be sure they are actually good deals for the state.
Graphic by Shea Huffman/Marketplace
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