By Alan Ohnsman | Bloomberg
Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA)’s Elon Musk is close to naming sites in at least two U.S. states for a planned battery “gigafactory” and will break ground at each to ensure one is ready to supply lithium-ion packs when needed.
Tesla, planning to add a mass-market electric car in about three years, said in February that it would build the world’s largest battery plant and is assessing sites in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. Lower-cost battery packs are needed to ensure Tesla’s proposed less-expensive model gets to market on time, Musk said. Tesla’s home state of California isn’t a candidate due to timing requirements for regulatory reviews.
“What we’re going to do is move forward with more than one state, at least two, all the way to breaking ground, just in case there’s last-minute issues,” Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, said in an interview this week. “The No. 1 thing is we want to minimize the risk timing for the gigafactory to get up and running.”
