The announcement of Gigafactory Mexico is less than one week old but Tesla and Mexico are wasting no time to get the project started. According to a Mexican official, the facility could be producing Tesla’s next generation vehicle as soon as next year.
Reuters reported that Tesla is in the final stages of receiving permits from the Nuevo Leon government to begin construction.
Nuevo Leon Governor Samuel Garcia said in an interview the permits could be issued this month:
They are waiting for the final permits … once that’s done, they can start, hopefully, this very month, in March. I think by next year, in 2024, there will be the first autos.
Tesla has so far provided very little information on Giga Mexico, and did not comment or confirm the timeline Garcia laid out in his interview.
However, this timeline matches what Drive Tesla reported earlier last week via a conversation with Tesla’s Tom Zhu. Zhu, who oversees Tesla’s North American factories and the company’s sales, service and delivery operations in North America and Europe, noted the company aims to produce vehicles within nine months of breaking ground in Nuevo Leon.
We also know that Tesla plans to build their next-generation vehicle at the facility, which will bring 5,000 jobs to the region and be larger than Giga Texas.