Texas approves incentives for Tesla Cybertruck Gigafactory
Tesla appears one step closer to building Giga Texas, a facility destined to make the Cybertruck. A state’s school district approved numerous tax breaks, which make the construction near Austin seem more and more likely.
We reported already in June that Tesla had made its choice for what will become the second Gigafactory in the US. Local media said at the time, that the electric car manufacturer had already bought land in Travis County. However, Elon Musk later corrected on Twitter that they had an option on the property, but that it had not yet been exercised. The reason for the hesitation was that the critical negotiations about tax benefits had not been concluded. Although Tesla favoured the location (and has submitted quite concrete plans to Travis County), Tulsa in Oklahoma could still hope to win the contract.
Now, however, local politicians in Texas seem to have cleared a significant hurdle. Representatives of the Del Valle Independent School District in Travis County have approved an incentive agreement for Tesla that would allow the company to avoid paying over $50 million in taxes over the next ten years. Tesla would be able to build its upcoming Cybertruck Gigafactory on district land and overall, the electric car maker is poised to save over $68 million, notes KXAN News. In the next step, the higher Travis County must approve similar regulations.
Such tax concessions are usually quite easy for the counties in the USA, as they grant rebates on taxes that they do not currently receive. In other words: Even with discounts worth millions, they would receive more taxes in the future than they do at this point in time. Previous reports have said that Tesla is seeking rebates on property tax, which is supposed to amount to around 77 million dollars (68 million euros) – which would have been achieved with the reported package of 50 million dollars (44 million euros).
The Tesla-focused portal Electrek says it assumes that the project is “unofficially a done deal” that just needs to “go through the process”. However, Elon Musk also recently visited Tulsa in Oklahoma, the other runner up for the Cybertruck Gigafactory, and negotiated with local officials. It remains to be seen whether Musk only wanted to increase the pressure on the Texans, or whether Tulsa is still a real option. We well recall the search for a site in Europe – while Musk had commented on locations like Saarland, he didn’t say a word about Brandenburg, now Giga-Berlin.
The project, codenamed Colorado River Project, has also been called the Tesla Cybertruck Gigafactory since it is expected to be the manufacturing site for Tesla’s upcoming electric pickup truck as well as the Model Y.
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