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Tesla’s next Gigafactory location unknown, but all signs point toward India
In May, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the electric automaker would likely announce its next Gigafactory location by year’s end.
While there have been rumors of deep talks in Spain, numerous meetings with French government officials, and heavy speculation regarding a relationship with Canada, Indonesia, and South Korea, it is becoming overwhelmingly clear that all signs are pointing toward India, a location where Tesla has mulled a factory for several years.
It all started back in 2015 when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Musk had their first meeting at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
At the time, Tesla was still a young-and-scrappy car company, pushing out just thousands of units each year as it only offered the Model S and Model X at the time. Electric vehicles were still a far cry from what they are today, and while there were other options on the market, gas-powered options still dominated the overall market.
Fast-forward to 2018, when Tesla decided to open its first vehicle production factory outside of the United States in Shanghai. The Chinese EV production plant quickly became Tesla’s most effective, accumulating thousands of workers and producing a majority of the automaker’s annual volume. It went from a domestic production facility for Chinese customers to an “export hub” that would feed some of the best-selling EVs to the European market.
This all happened before Tesla would commit to building a factory near Berlin in 2019, and then another factory in Mexico in 2023.
In 2021, Tesla seemed primed to announce it would make a substantial investment in India. It had a team of executives lined up, which included David Feinstein, Tesla vet who would be named Director of Global Trade and New Markets. Vaibhav Taneja was assigned as the Chief Accounting Officer for the India plant, and Prashanth R. Menon assumed the role of Director of Tesla India.
The team was even rounded out with Manuj Khurana for Policy and Development, Nishant Nishant for Charging Infrastructure, and Chithra Thomas for Human Resources. Samir Jain was set to take over India’s Service Operations for Tesla after seven years at Porsche, where he headed Aftersales for the German automaker’s operations in India.
However, the team Tesla would put together for India would never get to work in the market, as it was set to establish the plant there.
Tesla had certain demands it needed to fulfill before committing to a Gigafactory there, and India had certain demands it needed to fulfill before giving Tesla what it wanted.
Tesla’s ‘challenges’ with India gov’t halt potential rescue of $27B manufacturing initiative
India has some of the highest import duties on vehicles in the world. The taxes would double the price of any car priced over $40,000 and 60 percent to any car under that threshold. Because of this, Tesla requested import duties be reduced to 40 percent, which would help the company determine if demand for its cars was high enough to move forward.
If Tesla is able to succeed with imported vehicles, then a factory in India is quite likely.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2021
However, Indian officials were reluctant to oblige to Tesla’s demands, arguing that “company-specific” duty rollbacks would not be possible.
The government has made its stance against company-specific incentives clear,” government officials from India said. “This also applies for one particular company requesting industrywide changes to existing policy. Over the past four years, multiple demands were made by a large US-based firm to open up the market at lower import duties as well. Now, they locally produce in India and are ramping up capacity.”
India has a $27B manufacturing initiative called “Make In India,” which encourages companies from all corners of the globe to develop, produce, and assemble products in India with sizeable investments. This initiative was first introduced in 2014 by Modi.
Because Tesla would be importing vehicles from other countries, most likely China, into India’s marketplace, government officials were unfavorable of the idea of rolling back duties. However, they were willing to do so, only if Tesla would commit to building the factory in the first place, which completely eliminated the purpose of testing demand in the first place.
Two years later, it appears Tesla and India have come to some kind of agreement. Although the terms of a partnership or investment are unknown currently, both Modi and Musk have put forth statements that seem to indicate Tesla’s next factory will be in India.
“I am confident Tesla will be in India, and we’ll do so as soon as humanly possible,” Musk said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to announce something in the not-too-distant future.”
We don’t want to jump the gun on an announcement,” he added, “but it’s quite likely that there will be a significant investment and relationship in the future.”
#Breaking | ELON MUSK SPEAKS TO REPUBLIC
Elon Musk speaks to Republic after meeting PM Modi, announces he and Tesla are coming to India pic.twitter.com/x2CxFEDM2Z
— Republic (@republic) June 20, 2023
Modi also posted his own photo with Musk on his Twitter account, thanking the Tesla CEO for a “great meeting.”
Great meeting you today @elonmusk! We had multifaceted conversations on issues ranging from energy to spirituality. https://t.co/r0mzwNbTyN pic.twitter.com/IVwOy5SlMV
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 21, 2023
Because of the widespread speculation regarding Tesla’s next factory, we can all speculate on where it will end up. But if there is any indication of what the automaker wants and what the government wants, the long-standing attempts to get a deal done may indicate Tesla is most likely to end up in India.
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Tesla Cybercab tests are going on overdrive with production-ready units
Tesla is ramping its real-world tests of the Cybercab, with multiple sightings of the vehicle being reported across social media this week.
Tesla is ramping its real-world tests of the Cybercab, with multiple sightings of the autonomous two-seater being reported across social media this week. Based on videos of the vehicle that have been shared online, it appears that Cybercab tests are underway across multiple states.
Recent Cybercab sightings
Reports of Cybercab tests have ramped this week, with a vehicle that looked like a production-ready prototype being spotted at Apple’s Visitor Center in California. The vehicle in this sighting was interesting as it was equipped with a steering wheel. The vehicle also featured some changes to the design of its brake lights.
The Cybercab was also filmed testing at the Fremont factory’s test track, which also seemed to involve a vehicle that looked production-ready. This also seemed to be the case for a Cybercab that was spotted in Austin, Texas, which happened to be undergoing real-world tests. Overall, these sightings suggest that Cybercab testing is fully underway, and the vehicle is really moving towards production.
Production design all but finalized?
Recently, a near-production-ready Cybercab was showcased at Tesla’s Santana Row showroom in San Jose. The vehicle was equipped with frameless windows, dual windshield wipers, powered butterfly door struts, an extended front splitter, an updated lightbar, new wheel covers, and a license plate bracket. Interior updates include redesigned dash/door panels, refined seats with center cupholders, updated carpet, and what appeared to be improved legroom.
There seems to be a pretty good chance that the Cybercab’s design has been all but finalized, at least considering Elon Musk’s comments at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting. During the event, Musk confirmed that the vehicle will enter production around April 2026, and its production targets will be quite ambitious.
News
Tesla gets a win in Sweden as union withdraws potentially “illegal” blockade
As per recent reports, the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla action might have been illegal.
Swedish union Vision has withdrawn its sympathy blockade against Tesla’s planned service center and showroom in Kalmar. As per recent reports, the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla action might have been illegal.
Vision’s decision to pull the blockade
Vision announced the blockade in early December, stating that it was targeting the administrative handling of Tesla’s facility permits in Kalmar municipality. The sympathy measure was expected to start Monday, but was formally withdrawn via documents sent to the Mediation Institute and Kalmar Municipality last week.
As noted in a Daggers Arbete report, plans for the strike were ultimately pulled after employer group SKR highlighted potential illegality under the Public Employment Act. Vision stressed its continued backing for the Swedish labor model, though Deputy negotiation manager Oskar Pettersson explained that the Vision union and IF Metall made the decision to cancel the planned strike together.
“We will not continue to challenge the regulations,” Petterson said. “The objection was of a technical nature. We made the assessment together with IF Metall that we were not in a position to challenge the legal assessment of whether we could take this particular action against Tesla. Therefore, we chose to revoke the notice itself.”
The SKR’s warning
Petterson also stated that SKR’s technical objection to the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla strike framed the protest as an unauthorized act. “It was a legal assessment of the situation. Both for us and for IF Metall, it is important to be clear that we stand for the Swedish model. But we should not continue to challenge the regulations and risk getting judgments that lead nowhere in the application of the regulations,” he said.
Vision ultimately canceled its planned blockade against Tesla on December 9. With Vision’s withdrawal, few obstacles remain for Tesla’s long-planned Kalmar site. A foreign electrical firm completed work this fall, and Tesla’s Careers page currently lists a full-time service manager position based there, signaling an imminent opening.
Tesla Semi Program Director Dan Priestly teased the major improvements to the all-electric Class 8 truck on Thursday night, following the company’s decision to overhaul the design earlier this year.
Priestley said he drove the Semi on Thursday, and the improvements appear to be welcomed by one of the minds behind the project. “Our customers are going to love it,” he concluded.
Just drove the redesigned Semi. Our customers are going to love it. https://t.co/KZ88sf1CDL
— Dan Priestley (@danWpriestley) December 19, 2025
The small detail does not seem like much, but it is coming from someone who has been involved in the development of the truck from A to Z. Priestley has been involved in the Semi program since November 2015 and has slowly worked his way through the ranks, and currently stands as the Director of the program.
Tesla Semi undergoes major redesign as dedicated factory preps for deliveries
Tesla made some major changes to the Semi design as it announced at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting that it changed the look and design to welcome improvements in efficiency.
Initially, Tesla adopted the blade-like light bar for the Semi, similar to the one that is present on the Model Y Premium and the Cybertruck.
Additionally, there are some slight aesthetic changes to help with efficiency, including a redesigned bumper with improved aero channels, a smaller wraparound windshield, and a smoother roofline for better aero performance.
All of these changes came as the company’s Semi Factory, which is located on Gigafactory Nevada’s property, was finishing up construction in preparation for initial production phases, as Tesla is planning to ramp up manufacturing next year. CEO Elon Musk has said the Semi has attracted “ridiculous demand.”
The Semi has already gathered many large companies that have signed up to buy units, including Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., which have been helping Tesla test the vehicle in a pilot program to test range, efficiency, and other important metrics that will be a major selling point.
Tesla will be the Semi’s first user, though, and the truck will help solve some of the company’s logistics needs in the coming years.
Tesla Cybercab tests are going on overdrive with production-ready units
Tesla gets a win in Sweden as union withdraws potentially “illegal” blockade
