Elon Musk UK visit - potential factory?

[interbear]

Interesting speculation on the nature of a recent UK visit by Elon Musk - I wonder if the Berlin delays are making him think again about locating some manufacturing capability in the UK? Would be a welcome boost to the economy and UK Tesla owners I imagine. See BBC News link

 

[Dunstan]

Interesting speculation on the nature of a recent UK visit by Elon Musk - I wonder if the Berlin delays are making him think again about locating some manufacturing capability in the UK? Would be a welcome boost to the economy and UK Tesla owners I imagine. See BBC News link

I think it's a much longer game than that. There is a big centre of gravity for EVs around the Midlands: Coventry University has the biggest research centre in Europe for EV power trains; Warwick Uni has both fundamental power semiconductor research (my older son is a post doc researcher there) and manufacturing links; many of the motorsport teams are based in a corridor stratching from Coventry down through Oxfordshire (Williams) to Woking (McLaren). He's also cash rich just now, and there are both road car and racing teams that might be tickling the hole in his pocket: hell, he might have been talking to Lawrence Stroll about the future of Aston Martin (or, as they have been for the last 50 years, "Troubled car maker Aston Martin").

It may be that he plans to make cars here - we've been doing it well for a long time - but there are myriad possibilities. Over the next 5-10 years the Tesla product range will get more varied, and Britain would be a good place to be.

 

[Avendit]

Could sell a platform to equally 'troubled car manufacturer' JLR/TATA? Although they are a chunk of the way there so possibly not. It's a model they might explore eventually tho.

 

[Roy W.]

My guess is that Elon’s finally realised that we were the home of the Sinclair C5, and on the back of the huge success of that model, he feels the need for a U.K. factory…

I imagine he’ll be visiting Hoover in Merthyr Tydfil very soon.

 

[Jason71]

It may be that he plans to make cars here - we've been doing it well for a long time - but there are myriad possibilities. Over the next 5-10 years the Tesla product range will get more varied, and Britain would be a good place to be.

We've been doing it for a long time. "Well" is open to debate. I'll take one of the German built ones please.
Sorry to be so unpatriotic but I used to work in the car industry for many years and with the exception of the Japanese factories with their bullet proof quality systems mass market cars built here were not up to scratch. We are very innovative in this country and do low volume and niche very well but repetitive mass manufacture is not our thing. Combine that with the chaos that is Tesla and I am not sure you have a recipe for success

 

[speedyranger74]

We've been doing it for a long time. "Well" is open to debate. I'll take one of the German built ones please.
Sorry to be so unpatriotic but I used to work in the car industry for many years and with the exception of the Japanese factories with their bullet proof quality systems mass market cars built here were not up to scratch. We are very innovative in this country and do low volume and niche very well but repetitive mass manufacture is not our thing. Combine that with the chaos that is Tesla and I am not sure you have a recipe for success

Civic built here, Accord built in Japan... the quality between was very high.

 

[crouchy]

Someone was tweeting about this earlier, apparently 75,000 m2 building in Northamptonshire:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1395065639350509570

 

[Avendit]

Wow. That has to be into getting fired range.

 

[DigbyChicken]

Civic built here, Accord built in Japan... the quality between was very high.

I've had both a Japanese Nissan Leaf and a British Nissan Leaf and I'd be hard-pressed to say which was better built. It's possible the older one was, but then, we didn't have nearly it as long.

Mind you, I am old enough to have driven British-built cars of the 70s and 80s... (shivers)

 

[Llama.]

They’ll never make RHD Tesla cars in the U.K. or probably Germany for that matter. Just makes sense for all RHD M3s and MYs to come from Shanghai.

So the best we can hope for is something like battery manufacturing.

Apparently we have a strategic lithium resource. So that’s good!

 

[Durzel]

They’ll never make RHD Tesla cars in the U.K. or probably Germany for that matter. Just makes sense for all RHD M3s and MYs to come from Shanghai.

So the best we can hope for is something like battery manufacturing.

Apparently we have a strategic lithium resource. So that’s good!

I would tend to agree with this. With Berlin actually being built there's no reason to look to the UK for Europe manufacturing, and arguably less so now that we're not even in the EU.

Shanghai is geared up for RHD markets, including the UK. There's no reason to believe imo that the Model Y etc won't come from there. The good news is that from the sounds of it the MIC cars are consistently good (random Tesla heatpump sensor issues notwithstanding).

 

[crouchy]

I would tend to agree with this. With Berlin actually being built there's no reason to look to the UK for Europe manufacturing, and arguably less so now that we're not even in the EU.

Shanghai is geared up for RHD markets, including the UK. There's no reason to believe imo that the Model Y etc won't come from there. The good news is that from the sounds of it the MIC cars are consistently good (random Tesla heatpump sensor issues notwithstanding).

I agree too, but it isn’t very green shipping cars from the other side of the world here

 

[Mr Miserable]

I agree too, but it isn’t very green shipping cars from the other side of the world here

It's totally not green.

 

[Durzel]

Really the question is whether it would be more expensive for Fremont to manufacture and ship RHD cars, because I can’t see Berlin handling RHD when were the only country in Europe with RHD, and we’re not even in the EU.

Shanghai has the RHD countries on its doorstep. We’re the only odd one out.

 

[MrBadger]

Haven't Tesla fallen out of love with China recently? I read something about expanding presence in China being stalled? That may lead them to want to further diversify their manufacturing capabilities. However, its possibly unrelated as I am sure that if things were happening in the UK, the plans would predate any Chinese tensions.

 

[Fly.guy]

This is interesting in the context of this substantial UKRI call that I stumbled across today.

Expression of interest: Automotive Transformation Fund round 11

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £1 billion for capital-centric investment projects.

www.ukri.org

Just 3 weeks to develop a £1billion bid to be decided in another 3 weeks. Sounds very much like they have an applicant and a decision lined up already....

 

[Mrklaw]

Why is RHD still hard? With so few buttons and I guess steer by wire you just put the wheel and pedals on the other side and flash. RHD firmware on it.

Yes I know there is more to it than that, but you’d think that they are getting way more modular and mostly standard

 

[Llama.]

Why is RHD still hard? With so few buttons and I guess steer by wire you just put the wheel and pedals on the other side and flash. RHD firmware on it.

Yes I know there is more to it than that, but you’d think that they are getting way more modular and mostly standard

I think your right there is probably less difference between LHD and RHD with Teslas compared to other cars.

But they still have to stop the assembly line, retool, start up again etc. Probably once every quarter. I can imagine they would want to limit that to just Giga Shanghai.

 

[browellm]

It's totally not green.

I wonder how much greener it would be though to have the raw materials and components shipped to the factory. Presumably it's still a lot of imports arriving via dirty ships. And then of course, you wouldn't expect to produce solely for the home market so there will be exports too, on more dirty ships.

 

[pgkevet]

Location of the market is less important than size of the market by location and whatever bribes incentives are about. The mutterings about free trade with Oz may factor too. Not only that but car components get sent from all over - I doubt Tresla make their own lights, brakes, steering, aircon etc (yet) so much may depend where those bits are sourced from.
Not that speculation makes a tad of difference to whatever will happen.
My theory is that Elon is launching a range of self-driving golf clubs. It's a beta version with self putting promised by the end of the year and a range of golf bags with 15" screens...