Tesla buys 2,000 more acres in Northern Nevada
CARSON CITY — Tesla Motors Inc. is expanding its presence in the Northern Nevada desert. Records from the Storey County assessor‘s office shows the California-based electric car maker recently purchased nearly 2,000 more acres in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center east of Reno, where it is building a massive battery factory in partnership with Japanese electronics maker Panasonic Corp.
The acquisition triples the size of Tesla‘s property holdings in the Silver State, bringing total acreage to around 3,000.Tesla bought 1,000 acres in the industrial park last year. Tesla, led by billionaire chief executive Elon Musk, is building a $5 billion, 5 million square-foot manufacturing plant where it intends to produce lithium ion batteries. Musk has said the batteries are key to the California car maker‘s goal of mass marketing its fast and sporty electric cars and make them more affordable to the general public.
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval and his economic development chief, Steve Hill, negotiated a package of tax incentives valued at $1.3 billion, winning a multistate bidding war to lure Tesla to Nevada. State lawmakers approved the measures during a two-day special legislative session last September.
To reap the tax benefits, the law requires Tesla, or any other company seeking similar tax breaks, to invest $3.5 billion in Nevada over 10 years.Hill last month told a panel of legislators that the framework for the first phase of the project is complete, but the 900,000 square-foot building represents just 14 percent of the total size of the factory at build-out.Once completed it will be the largest building in the world, and it could eventually get even bigger.
Musk earlier this year announced plans to produce stationary energy storage units for use in homes and businesses that can store solar-generated electricity for use when the sun doesn‘t shine.
During a recent earnings report conference call with analysts, he mentioned that the company was looking at possibly expanding the size of the Nevada plant by as much as 50 percent to 100 percent, though no firm intentions have been announced.
