Tesla Inc. is finalizing plans to build an electric vehicle assembly plant in an industrial area of northeastern Mexico and may announce the factory as early as this week, Bloomberg News reported late Friday.
Tesla’s
TSLA,
EV plant will be located in Santa Catarina in Monterrey city, the capital of Nuevo Leon state, which borders Texas, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Final details are still being ironed out and it’s not yet clear which models would be made there. Talks with the company have involved both the state government and Mexico’s foreign relations ministry, Bloomberg News said.
CEO Elon Musk had hinted at a year-end decision on a North American plant.
President Biden’s EV-heavy Inflation Reduction Act will change the landscape for purchase incentives when it kicks in for the new year. Among other qualifications applied to manufacturers and consumers, an emphasis was put on North American EV parts and assembly. What’s more, the previous cap on incentives already used up by Tesla and its customers will reset.
Tesla’s stock just wrapped up its worst week since 2020, as Musk sold billions in stock and faced a call from a prominent investor to step down from the helm of the EV maker. Musk has reportedly been spending much of his time at Twitter, which he bought earlier this year and for which he is now seeking more investment help as the changeover has roiled the platform.
Among prominent Tesla investors, Leo KoGuan, the third-largest individual shareholder, has publicly called for a new Tesla CEO.
The stock logged a weekly decline of 16.1%, the fourth-worst week in history for the shares.
