The American manufacturer of electric cars Tesla maintains interest in Spain in the search for sites for a new factory for electric vehicles or batteries that complements the infrastructure that it already has in place in Berlin (Germany). After the leak of the conversations with the Valencian Generalitat, which occurred a few days after the municipal and regional elections on May 28, the company chaired by Elon Musk expressed its anger at the breach of confidentiality and cut off communication for several days. However, in recent weeks contacts have been resumed and now it is the central government that has liaised with the entity through the Moncloa Economic Office, directed by Manuel de la Rocha, as El Confidencial has learned. from knowledgeable sources.

The institutional dialogue is at risk of what happens with the Executive of Pedro Sánchez, now in office and pending to obtain support for a new investiture or call new general elections for the end of the year if the conservative Alberto Núñez Feijóo does not add enough support either. However, the forecast is that the talks will resume in September, if Tesla does not definitively opt for one of the possible alternative locations in France or Italy beforehand.. A possible meeting between Musk and Sánchez is not ruled out, as has already happened with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.

The Valencian Generalitat, now in the hands of the popular Carlos Mazón, also already has the contacts to resume the negotiations that started with the team of the former socialist president Ximo Puig. Asked about this matter during a visit to the land that will house the Volkswagen gigafactory in Sagunto, Mazón confirmed that Telsa is still “looking for locations.”. “Officially, there are no negotiations, there can always be talks and we try to carry them out with privacy, not secrecy, trying to take any investment that may come to the Valencian Community to the best port,” said the popular baron in statements collected by Europa Press. The new Consell is in the middle of the folder transfer phase and, in fact, has not yet appointed a new technical team in charge of managing industrial investors on behalf of the regional Administration.

In what there is a coincidence in the sources consulted is that Tesla will hardly arrive in time to take advantage of the batch of European aid called by the Ministry of Industry for the manufacture of batteries, endowed with 850 million euros. Neither for the window for investments oriented to the value chain of electric car manufacturing, which has a budget of 344 million euros in grants and 215 million in loans.. The deadlines for the presentation of projects of the second Perte VEC opened on July 17 and ends on September 15. However, whether or not to access these economic incentives, for which other brands such as Volkswagen or Ford will bid, does not seem to be going to condition the final decision of Elon Musk's company, according to the same sources..

The American executives who visited the possible locations in Valencia several weeks ago assessed the urban planning instruments contemplated by Spanish legislation, especially the possibility that the regional Administration, as has happened with the Volkswagen factory in Sagunto, could expropriate the land to provide the necessary land to house the factory. Cheste, a few kilometers from Valencia, is the best positioned location. The factor of the facilities in the urban processing, the geographical location, the railway and port links and the training capacity summarize the main strengths of the Valencian alternative. Actually, they are the same ones that led the German manufacturer and its subsidiary PowerCo to choose Parc Sagunt.

Tesla is having trouble in Germany to expand its vehicle and battery factory. They are environmental reasons linked to waste management and the possible impact on protected waters in the surroundings of the industrial complex.. The American manufacturer wants to expand the production capacity of the factory from half a million cars a year to one million due to the good reception of its cars in Europe. The possibility of Spain hosting the second Tesla plant on the continent is open. She is not the only candidate. But neither is it the one with the worst options.