Tesla Austin Factory Now Official

The long rumored and threatened (if you’re California) Austin-area Telsa Gigafactory is now official:

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.

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.

The site is evidently going to be out at SH-130 and Harold Green Road northeast of the airport, at the site previously owned by Martin Marietta.

That “15 minutes from downtown” line is pure real estate agent hyperbole. Sure, that’s 15 minutes from downtown…at 3 AM. If you’re willing to speed.

Welcome to Austin, Telsa! Enjoy the BBQ, but please leave any political liberalism back in California…