UK Government “Searching for Tesla Gigafactory site in the UK” – is Tesla heading for the UK?

An industry report claims the UK Government’s Department for International Trade is searching for a UK site for a new Tesla Gigafactory.

All the UK car news in recent months has, unsurprisingly, been pretty negative, with production virtually at zero and even apparently successful companies like McLaren cutting jobs and trying to raise finance as the Covid-19 fallout bites the economy.

But there has been some good news with Nissan, despite its problems, pretty much guaranteeing that their Sunderland Plant will stay (although it remains to be seen at what level of production), and car makers slowly getting back to production.

But now there appears to be more good news – Tesla is heading for the UK.

According to Property Week, a property industry news site, the government’s Department for International Trade is putting feelers out to try and find a suitable four million square foot site to house a new Tesla Gigafactory, despite Elon Musk previously ruling out the UK as a post-Brexit location and opting to build a Gigafactory in Berlin instead.

But this is Tesla, and nothing is ever quite as it seems, and perhaps we’ve already got a hint Tesla is planning on a big UK presence after it applied for a licence to be a UK electricity supplier earlier this month, and maybe Musk is betting on a free trade agreement between the EU and UK, and UK and US, making the UK a very sensible option after all?

It could also be linked to an announcement we’d expected by now, although it’s been pushed back due to the C19 problems, that Tesla has a new million mile battery which is far cheaper to produce and will bring the cost of EVs in line with ICE cars.

It’s all quite intriguing, and hopefully we’ll find out more when Musk makes his ‘Battery’ announcement.