Tesla Says Battery Gigafactory Will Not Be Built In California

Virgil Hilts
by Virgil Hilts

Announcements of businesses leaving regulation-happy and costly California or declining to do business in California are as common here in the Golden State as seeing a Prius blocking the left lane on the 405. This move is a bit of a surprise as California-based Tesla Motors said this morning that they have eliminated the state as a possible site for their $5-billion dollar battery factory, meaning only Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada remain in the running.

It was only two weeks ago that the electric automaker announced plans to build the 500 to 1,000-acre site designed to produce up to 500,000 batteries per year and employ up to 6,500 workers to support the launch of upcoming models. The Los Angeles Times says the California governor’s office is not commenting but you can be sure there are some embarrassed bureaucrats in Sacramento when they learned today that the sites they proposed to Tesla were the first to be rejected. Tesla is also mum as to why California was rejected as of this writing.


Besides California being Tesla’s number one state for car sales, the company employees over 6,000 workers at their Fremont factory, their Palo Alto headquarters and their Southern California design studio.

This begs the question: will Tesla possibly bargain with Texas to change their franchise laws to allow them to open traditional dealerships in exchange for the battery factory?

Virgil Hilts
Virgil Hilts

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  • JD321 JD321 on Mar 09, 2014

    "Socialism is the collective OWNERSHIP of everything in a society" Communism is collective ownership. Socialism is legalized theft. Communism, Democracy, and Fascism are Socialist. This should be obvious by now...even to the public schoolers. The corporate owners and directors want to pass the government/democracy parasite plundering on to the wage-earner chumps. It is their fiduciary responsibility.

    • U mad scientist U mad scientist on Mar 09, 2014

      > Communism is collective ownership. Socialism is legalized theft. Property ownership or any other law as implied in the first part is what society makes of it. That's why the second part is so confused: how can something be illegal that isn't wrong? For example, emancipating black people was also theft during a certain time period, and for quite a while various groups reminded others of this. > Communism, Democracy, and Fascism are Socialist. This should be obvious by now…even to the public schoolers. Correct enough on the first two, but fascism is just totalitarian. I'm pretty sure if you were made the decider, society would be the opposite of egalitarian. > the government/democracy parasite At least this one's honest about what conservatism is about.

  • Zykotec Zykotec on Mar 09, 2014

    I think school teachers, politicians, philosophers and scholars of all kinds should read one of the threads on TTAC to learn all the 'real' definitions of left and right wing politics, not to mention all the definitions of socialism, because it seems everyone here knows sooo much more than what is considered 'correct' everywhere else...(sarcastic tone could be intended) On Topic though, A battery factory anywhere in the US owuld probably be 'greener' for the environment than shipping the batteries around the world, but I guess all the raw material comes from china or something anyway. You should be happy that someone is trying to lower the number of unemployed people.

  • Stevelovescars Stevelovescars on Mar 09, 2014

    All the Texas propaganda about California reminds me of the old Yogi Berra attributed saying about how "nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded." The logic is unsound. Home prices aren't the highest in the nation because nobody wants to live and work in CA. Texas's refusal to allow Tesla to sell cars directly under the guise of protecting dealer franchises when Tesla has no such franchises is just plain asinine. That state simply has a reputation for lax regulation because regulation there is for sale to the highest bidder. The comment about the fertilizer factory was actually on point, I believe. Southern states with their "business friendly environments" and focus on "traditional family values" have, on average, the highest rates of poverty, lowest rates of literacy, highest rates of teen pregnancy, and the lowest rates of health insurance coverage for their citizens. I can understand why millionaires want to relocate there... To protect what they already have... Why anyone else finds Texas appealing is beyond me. And I did live there for a while, so I am not speaking from complete ignorance. While the coldest winter I ever knew may have been the summer I spent in San Francisco, the summer I spent in Houston would just rather be completely forgotten. Decent barbecue, though I liked the pork better in Tennessee.

  • Silverkris Silverkris on Mar 13, 2014

    Look for a location with rail access - given that the batteries are very heavy and that the final assembly plant is next to a rail line.

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