RobStark
Well-Known Member
Fremont is already one of the largest car manufacturing facilities in the world, and it will be one of Tesla’s smallest facilities.
The legacy model of hyper-localization to accommodate suppliers is a thing of the past.
VW sold 10.7M cars from 118 factories around the world in 2019 with a capacity of ~13M units.
This allows
1) VW to get behind many tariff walls/customs unions.
2) Engenders widespread political support, even within countries.
3) Protects against natural disasters in one location. One earthquake, tornado, tsunami etc won't wipe out your production.
4) Protects against manmade disasters like labor strikes or nationalizations in one particular country.
5) The one VW factory that is only producing BEVs previously made combustion engines. Many of the others can/will be converted to BEV/battery cell manufacturing in the future.