Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed his intentions of opening a Gigafactory in India. The announcement comes shortly after Tesla opened their Gigafactory earlier this week, apparently the biggest factory in the world.
Elon Musk commented on the occasion about setting up more such factories across the globe, India being one of the destinations. Electric cars are generally powered by lithium ion batteries and the production facility for such batteries is called a Gigafactory.
Musk also surprised Indian customers after announcing that its recently launched Tesla Model 3 will make its way across the country in a year or two. It’s most affordable car ever, pre-orders of the car are open for Indian customers.
Meanwhile, minister of road and transport Nitin Gadkari also paid a visit to Tesla’s manufacturing facility in the US, where he suggested Musk to set up a production facility in India.
The move has been a long time coming. As back in 2015, Elon Musk posted a tweet where he initially revealed his plans to open a car battery factory in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also visited the Tesla factory while on his trip to Silicon Valley last year.
“Obviously long term it’s going to make sense to have a Gigafactory in Europe, one in China and probably one in India. The Tesla Gigafactory is vital for the future of Tesla in order to produce this affordable mass-market electric car which has been our goal from the beginning,” said Musk said on the BBC 5 live radio interview.
Just a handful of the Tesla Model S are currently sold in India. While China, apparently the world’s largest car market has witnessed a huge demand for Tesla cars. With more than 1,300 units sold during Q3 2015, China is set to overtake the United States as the largest car market for Tesla.
Tesla’s Gigafactory situated in Nevada is spread over a massive 13 sq.km radius. The cost for building the factory premises has reportedly been estimated at $5 billion. As of now, only a small portion of the facility has been completed.
The company wants to finish the task by 2020 to start production in full-swing. Tesla’s goal is to produce battery power worth 35GWh by 2018. This is where Tesla will manufacture batteries that power its electric vehicles. The electric-car manufacturer has been largely importing batteries from Asia, but with Elon Musk setting a target of churning out 5,00,000 cars a year, it must build those batteries in the Gigafactory in Nevada.
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