New Tesla Factory Location(s)

[AudubonB]

In some other thread, somewhere, about 6-9 months ago....

...I requested all to make known any closed or closing auto plants in their region, country, continent...anywhere known. I can't recall what response occurred; if I find it I may have the relevant posts ported over to this one.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

VW mulls closure of showpiece Phaeton plant, report says

VW’s problems troubling for Chattanooga

 

[AudubonB]

Etiquette - as well as forum rules, by the way: do not post up any links without commenting on them.

Following your link, I find about the Phaeton plant:
1. It's in economically depressed Dresden, in eastern Germany
2. It's an architectural masterpiece - lots of transparent glass walls; at full operation employs 500 and is long and narrow....

but,

3. isn't much of a factory. From wikipedia, it " handles final assembly only. Operations such as stamping and welding and the painting of the steel bodies take place in Zwickau. Painted bodies arrive at the factory by truck. The other 1200 parts and 34 preassembled components are shipped to a remote logistics center and are transferred from there to the factory by CarGoTrams that run on Dresden's public transport tracks.

and

4. Its design capacity is 20,000 vehicles per year.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Sorry about that.

A depressed region, or abandoned facility could be seen as an opportunity. Thought I added something like this to my comment.

 

[pr0teu5]

Doesn't Tesla already have a vehicle assembly plant in Tilburg Netherlands? It seems like they'd be better off expanding that facility rather than building or buying a second plant in Europe. At least at the moment.

 

[omarsultan]

All Tilburg essentially does is install the battery packs. I also cannot imagine France as a location. Building in Germany would be the best way to penetrate that market or eastern Europe for lower labor costs.

 

[pr0teu5]

All Tilburg essentially does is install the battery packs. I also cannot imagine France as a location. Building in Germany would be the best way to penetrate that market or eastern Europe for lower labor costs.

Yeah I knew it was small, but there's always room for growth. I will agree that if they were to do another factory in Europe Germany makes more sense than anywhere else.

 

[SmartElectric]

Felt compelled to reply to this thread:

My Smart ED is produced in the nearby region of France/Germany border, about 150 km from the Nuclear site referenced.
Smartville, Hambach, France - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Smart production video shows a modern and efficient factory:

 

[Rarity]

Re the Transparent Factory in Dresden, it sounds like logistics would be a nightmare. It's in the center of the city. And it's much too small (250,000 square feet).

Re Chattanooga, it is too small (2.1 million square feet).

Compare to Freemont at a footprint of 5 million square feet and factory floor at something less than that.

 

[AudubonB]

I wonder what it would take to throw up another 2-3mm sq ft to a 2.1mm (Chattanooga) building. Certainly, that would differ vasty on a case-by-case basis - some sites would have easy-to-alter hardware installed; others would have location infrastructure that would trump some costlier renovation/expansion costs, and so on.

I do know that Tennessee offered geographic advantages that made it the apple of the auto industry's eye for the three-decade period beginning around 1980 as well as, even more spectacularly, FedEx as its Ground Zero for North America. Granted, the latter is 300 miles west of Chattanooga.

 

[neroden]

OK, here's a closed plant which might make sense, in France:

PSA Aulnay-sous-Bois Plant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I skipped over everything in Michigan. Here's one in Ohio:
Lorain Assembly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[pr0teu5]

OK, here's a closed plant which might make sense, in France:

PSA Aulnay-sous-Bois Plant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I skipped over everything in Michigan. Here's one in Ohio:
Lorain Assembly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here's the real question though. Does it even make sense for Tesla to buy a closed automotive factory anymore? It made sense when they were a much smaller company and were strapped for cash, but now that they are much larger and have experience building the gigafactory it almost certainly makes more sense for them to just build the factory they need.

 

[AudubonB]

That's a good question but if there ever is a situation even vaguely similar to NUMMI in Fremont you can bet your last penny TM would jump on it.
Its acquisition from Toyota for cheese-scrapings was one of the greatest financial coups of the past decades: $42mm for a 5.3mm sq ft, $1bn plant.
Unlikely to find such a deal again, though.

 

[pr0teu5]

Yeah, there's no way that's happening again. It was an even better deal than that if I remember correctly as GM/Toyota still had some manufacturing equipment that was thrown in with the deal.

 

[AudubonB]

A lot of equipment - Gigapresses weighing gigatons, for example.

 

[pr0teu5]

A lot of equipment - Gigapresses weighing gigatons, for example.

I hope you mean capable of generating 1billion tons of pressure, as any piece of equipment with a weight in gigatons would weight as much as a small mountain.

 

[MichaelVorst]

Why buy an empty nuke when they can probably pick up another Toyota plant for a song in Australia?

Toyota Australia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

150K Camry's / year capacity. Closing in 2017.

Tesla could build RHD cars here and export them to the rest of the RHD world - we buy 1Million+ cars per year, mostly imported, so all those car carrier ships are probably returning overseas empty anyway.

 

[AudubonB]

Well, I suggest you don't stick your hand in one.

 

[vberber]

They need to get a factory up & running in Mexico, India & Brazil!

 

[Bankroetlama]

From a supply chain and Operations standpoint, this expansion of Tesla is unprecedented in industrial history. (in speed, not in terms of total capacity)