The mayor of Santa Catarina, Jesús Nava Rivera, celebrated the installation of the next Tesla Gigafactory in this municipality in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo León, the state that won the battle to become the headquarters of the automotive giant.
Through his Facebook account, the mayor showed his excitement for the good news for the municipality and the arrival of a millionaire investment: “Thank God, Santa Catarina in the eyes of the world.”
Santa Catarina is a city located only 9 kilometers from Monterrey, and another of its advantages is that it is located on the exit to Saltillo, Coahuila, in addition to its relative proximity to the border between Mexico and Texas, United States.
According to the information available, Tesla’s Gigafactory will occupy more than 1,000 hectares of the land that used to belong to the Santa Catarina Racetrack, located on the exit to the highway to Saltillo, Coahuila.
Nava Rivera highlighted that the arrival of Tesla, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, is a great challenge that should encourage the city to show its capacity to the international community, since it is important to remember that the company has other plants in China, Germany and, of course, in the United States.
Upon confirming the news publicly, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador revealed on February 28 that Elon Musk’s company would arrive “in full” in Monterrey. However, the executives will make the official announcement and details of the investment, an event that will be attended by the governor of Nuevo León, Samuel García.
For that reason, the mayor of Santa Catarina extended his thanks to the governor.
“Many thanks to Governor Samuel Garcia for making this possible, to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and above all, we thank Elon Musk, Tesla, and its executives for their trust. With hard work, we will show what we are capable of. This is just a great start,” said the municipal president.
The official pointed out that Tesla represents five times more of the private investment in Santa Catarina in the last 10 years. For this reason, he highlighted the governor’s tours abroad to convince the companies to settle in the northern Mexican state.
As for the governor of Nuevo Leon, he is expected to participate in the event where Tesla Motors executives will announce to their investors the details of the construction of the Nuevo Leon factory and the projected production capacity. President López Obrador will not participate in this meeting, as announced by the President himself.
According to analysts, this municipality offers ample advantages for installing an automobile assembly plant, such as its proximity to other suppliers for its vehicles, including manufacturers of braking components, glass, and other electronic elements.
The plant, which could be about one kilometer long in its main building, requires about 900 hectares, a requirement that can be met by this Neolonian municipality, which has an unpopulated area large enough for the industrial complex.
Iván Ramírez, Nuevo León’s Secretary of Economy, pointed out that deep wells and shallow wells are being developed to guarantee water supply for the industrial sector and the population.
Nuevo León can provide services to attract more investments, said Iván Ramírez, who explained that so far in the current administration, 119 companies have already set up in Nuevo León, with an investment of more than 6 billion dollars and the creation of approximately 70 thousand jobs.
It is estimated that from the processing of the necessary permits, the construction of the Gigafactory would take around two years, enough time to solve the water supply issue, considering that the El Cuchillo 2 Aqueduct is under construction.
Although Santa Catarina is located near a wind zone for power generation, the next challenge will be to increase energy capacity and bring in more natural gas to meet the demand of Tesla’s Gigafactory.
The reasons why Tesla decided to move out of California
Tesla Motors is an American company created by Elon Musk in 2003 and initially based in California.
The main objective of Tesla Motors is to market fully electric vehicles, so the Tesla Roadster was the first vehicle manufactured by the company, an all-electric sports car pioneer in the use of lithium-ion batteries, with a range of over 300 kilometers per charge.
Although the company was headquartered in Palo Alto, California, in the southern United States, in October 2021, Musk announced the relocation of its facilities to Austin, Texas.
Musk justified the decision to relocate the headquarters by the higher cost of living in the town outside San Francisco and by the difficulties of expanding its facilities.