After the much-discussed visit of Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk to the state of Nuevo León in October, Tesla is set to announce its first vehicle plant in Mexico by January of next year, the news platform Milenio reported on Tuesday.
“Tesla will arrive in Santa Catarina [Nuevo León]. The investment will be finalized in the coming weeks and announced after year end,” read the document that Milenio reviewed. The remarks are in line with hints dropped by Nuevo León’s governor earlier this month; Governor Samuel García said that “historic” investments — supposedly among the largest in the state’s history — would be coming to Nuevo León soon.
The plant, which according to Milenio will assemble cargo trucks, would be built in a strategic quadrant in the municipality of Santa Catarina, near kilometer 51 of the Monterrey-Saltillo highway and 38 minutes away from downtown Monterrey, Nuevo León.
Strategically, Santa Catarina is a seven-hour drive from Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas.
Due to a non-disclosure agreement between the parties, the identity of the owner of the land where the factory would be built remains unknown. “It is my understanding that the land has been bought,” an unidentified source told Milenio, “… however it is true that Elon Musk made them sign a non-disclosure agreement.” That same source added that nearby properties “will go up” in price.
Other sources told Milenio that the factory would be built in a racetrack (now stables) that never received a license to operate. Back in 2015, Six Flags Entertainment Corporation had plans to build a theme park in that same spot.
While visiting the area, Milenio reporters found that the factory would be built in the same vicinity as Terralta Residencial & Country Club, where properties are currently sold for up to US $1 million.
Tesla, which was recently granted its own lane at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing in Nuevo León, already has suppliers in Nuevo León that include the Taiwanese companies EnFlex Corp. and Quanta Computer, French firm Faurecia SE, Germany’s ZF Friedrichshafen AG and APG.
With reports from Milenio
