All right Tesla announced it will build What it's calling a gigafactory in Mexico the electric vehicle maker will Build the facility almost 400 miles away From Tesla's Headquarters in Austin New York Times business reporter Jackie Wing Is here with us in studio 57 to discuss Uh so this is a big deal what does this Announcement mean for the company and Why are they doing it well I think the Reason it's all about costs that they Could produce more cheaply in Mexico and This is part of a plan to produce a new Vehicle or vehicles that will be cheaper More affordable than what Tesla has on The market right now so this was kind Kind of pitched as an investors meeting And you would point it out and others Have pointed out it got super super Wonky and like if you're not into the Engineering and the science you probably Started to doze off but what I thought Was sort of interesting about it is There has been a real push for a lot of Companies to keep their manufacturing Within at least North America Particularly after all the supply chain Hiccups that we saw the other big we Have the Tesla has a factory in Germany And they have another one in China and So I thought to myself oh he's trying to Tell investors I'm focusing on North America I think and uh you know I'll be Able to crank out cars no matter what
Happens globally yeah I think that was Definitely one of the messages and That's the big advantage of Mexico that You can produce there less expensively Than you can in the United States but Then you can ship the cars to the United States and Canada duty-free I have a Tesla I'm just saying it because they're Full disclosure to say it I wasn't going To say it but I'm not normally this Interested in cars So uh Jack uh Tesla says uh quote that The Earth can move to a sustainable Economy Um so at the area where the plant is Going to be based uh suffers from water Shortages uh so what kind of Environmental impact is putting this Plant in that particular location well That's that's an excellent point because Monterey has a really serious water Problem there was there was periods last Summer when people would go weeks Without water in their homes and there's Already a lot of Industry there are Already a lot of water demand so that's Really an unanswered question how is Tesla going to deal with that and and Stick with their brand of being Environmentally sustainable yeah one of Many unanswered questions that came out Of this Grand meeting uh Jacqueline Thank you very much thanks for having me
