Over the past few months, we have been reporting on evidence that Tesla has been looking at a potential location in Canada for its next Gigafactory. Tesla plans to ramp up production to 20 million electric vehicles by the end of the decade, and it is expected to need about eight more Gigafactories to do it.
In June, Electrek obtained a recording of a companywide meeting held by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, during which he confirmed that Tesla is looking at factory sites in North America. The CEO also hinted at Canada being the location for Tesla’s next Gigafactory, which he says should be announced by the end of the year.
Musk teased a possible Canada factory again at Tesla’s annual shareholders’ meeting last month, and the company’s efforts were confirmed through a lobbying disclosure by the automaker with the Ontario government in Canada.
Last month, a local report stated that Tesla had visited Vale’s nickel operations in Canada and was scouting sites for a factory in Ontario and Quebec. We also reported that Tesla visited a graphite mining and processing company based in Quebec’s battery valley.
Finally, Quebec started to look like a likely location for a Tesla Gigafactory in Canada after we saw the automaker had posted a job listing for a high-volume recruiter, which generally means the company is looking to hire thousands of workers.
Last week, Francois-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s industry and innovation minister, confirmed that the government is talking to Tesla about the automaker establishing a factory in the country.
https://electrek.co/2022/09/13/tesla-hires-senior-gov-official-lead-critical-mineral-supply-chain-canada/