Valencia wants to be where the second Tesla gigafactory in Europe is installed. And the negotiations between Tesla and the Generalitat Valenciana are very advanced, as confirmed by sources close to the operation to media such as El Mundo or ElDiario.es. At stake is an investment of 4,500 million euros that would make Valencia one of the European motor capitals.
Negotiations at the highest level. The conversations between the government of the Valencian Community and Elon Musk’s company have been taking place for almost a year, the sources consulted report.
The intention is to bring Tesla’s second European electric car and battery factory to Valencia, after the one in Berlin. It is a project with a huge economic impact and in principle it would exceed the 3,000 million euros planned by Volkswagen for the 40 GWh battery factory in Sagunto, starting in 2026.
They deny that anything is closed. The Generalitat Valenciana has not been slow to communicate that “there is no closed agreement”. They explain that the Valencian government maintains open negotiations with “a dozen” multinationals with the intention of attracting up to 24,000 million euros of investment.
They point out that “all these negotiations, as already mentioned, are subject to strict confidentiality criteria to guarantee that the different operations can come to fruition as soon as possible, as is the wish of this Council”.
Confidentiality has been breached (and may backfire). These confidentiality agreements are very important and Valencian government sources point out that the leaking of this news could put the operation itself at risk. Because of this, all the authorities have chosen not to give more details.
Tesla has been looking to build a second gigafactory in Europe since 2016. These plans are not overnight. It is true that with the pandemic the schedule will have been delayed, but Tesla’s goal of building a second gigafactory comes from afar.
In 2016, Elon Musk confirmed the idea of building a Gigafactory 2, and did not even rule out a third. Valencia may be an option, although multiple applications are likely to be considered.
2,000 million euros in aid are waiting. For the one in Berlin, Tesla invested about 5,000 million dollars, with the capacity to assemble about 500,000 electric cars. About Valencia there is talk of a similar amount.
Although, one of the arguments of Spain to attract the Tesla factory may be the aid from PERTE VEC 2. In total about 2,000 million euros and loans at 0% interest.
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