Tesla & Portuguese Government Hold Talks On Unspecified Topics

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

Tesla-Superchargers-SpainTesla and the government of Portugal recently held talks on a variety of unspecified topics, according to reports.

Presumably, these talks related to potential investment into the country — whether related to the company’s Supercharger network, or manufacturing, or research and development facilities — but details aren’t completely clear as of now.

More specifically, the talks involved the Portuguese Secretary of State Assistant And of Environment, José Mendes, and the Regional Manager of South EU–Charging Infrastructure of Tesla Motors, Douglas Alfaro. That does make it sound like it would be Supercharger related.

Push EVs provides more: “The main topic will be the expansion of Tesla’s charging network, but it won’t be the only. The Portuguese government’s bet in electric cars is part of the strategy to become less dependent of foreign oil importation. Portugal’s Prime Minister, António Costa, is a strong supporter of electric cars and he makes sure to be noticed, by always preferring electric cars as his official cars. Tesla Motors is being encouraged to build a Research and Development (R&D) center in the country and I’m sure that the European Gigafactory is something that the current government would be thrilled to support.”

There are certainly a lot of economic benefits available to Portugal should it transition 100% to electric cars.

Continuing: “The investment in electric cars is a priority of left governments in Portugal since 2010, unfortunately every time we get a right-wing government we take many steps back. That’s what happen in 2011 when the right-wing coalition put the national electric charging network on hold and broken without maintenance. Only now, with a new left government the charging network is being repaired and more chargers are being added. I’m very optimistic for the Tesla Motors future increased presence in Portugal.”

Portugal of course has a lot of competition with regard to the development of potential manufacturing or research and development facilities. France, Spain, the Netherlands, and a number of other countries all seem to be angling to be home to future Tesla development.


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

James Ayre

James Ayre's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy.

James Ayre has 4830 posts and counting. See all posts by James Ayre