Tesla chief executive Elon Musk says the electric automaker will open its second gigafactory in Europe and decide on an exact location next year.
The billionaire businessman confirmed the news while speaking about Tesla’s recent acquisition of German engineering group, Grohmann Engineering.
During a press conference, Musk said the European facility won’t just focus on lithium-ion battery production but will also manufacture cars, Electrek reports.
“This is something that we plan on exploring quite seriously with different locations for very large scale Tesla vehicles, and battery and powertrain production – essentially an integrated ‘Gigafactory 2’”, he said during a conference call.
“There’s no question that long-term Tesla will have at least one – and maybe two or three – vehicle and battery factory locations in Europe.”
In the meantime, Tesla is focused on bringing the entry-level Model 3 to the market in mid-2017. When volume production of the Model 3 is reached, Musk expects the automaker to build 600,000 cars annually, up from its current 100,000 units per annum figure.
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