Tesla is reportedly considering building an electric vehicle factory in Thailand, according to Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin after meeting with Elon Musk.
Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk met with Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin to discuss several topics.
Thavisin met with several technology executives in New York amid the UN General Assembly and back in Bangkok today. He told reporters that he expects Tesla, Microsoft, and Google to invest $5 billion in the country.
He said (via Reuters):
“Tesla would be looking into an EV manufacturing facility, Microsoft and Google are looking at data centres.”
Tesla only somewhat recently started to operate officially in Thailand with opening orders late last year and starting deliveries this year.
The Thai auto market is more significant than most people would think. More than 750,000 cars were sold in the market last year, and it is expected to ramp up to 800K–900K this year. However, most of those vehicles are not in the same price range as Tesla vehicles.
While Tesla has started selling cars in the country, it is the first time we heard about Tesla potentially investing in manufacturing in Thailand.
Thailand is already one of the biggest vehicle assembly hubs in Asia with up to 2 million vehicles produced locally per year.
Tesla plans to ramp up vehicle production to 20 million vehicles per year by 2030, and it is going to need several new factories to make that happen.