The City of Southfield in Detroit has granted Tesla approval for a facility.
The American company plans to expand an existing building to accommodate a research and development and repair center for electric vehicles.
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Southfield had to update its zoning ordinance to accommodate Tesla’s plans because it did not cover electric vehicles and research design, as reported by Detroit News.
Tesla will expand the building to 34,500 square feet. Southfield Planning Director Terry Croad described the project, “As I’ve been telling people, this isn’t your grandfather’s bump shop. You know, there’s no oils and gases, there’s a lot of computers and chips, and (you can) do diagnostics in a much cleaner way than your typical automotive repair shop.”
“It’s a well-known name. We continue to say that we’re the center of it all. We’re just finishing up our master plan, where we’re trying to anticipate the industry moving to electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and automated vehicles. And we’re trying to position ourselves with our zoning to be flexible for these new technologies.”
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