Yahoo! Japan reported that other than China, Tesla may be considering gigafactory plans at sites in either Japan or South Korea. The article noted that Elon Musk was asked on Twitter about plans to build a new plant in Asia outside of China. “Yeah, but first we need to finish Giga Berlin and a second US Giga to serve the eastern half of North America,” was Elon Musk’s reply.
In this article, I want to discuss Tesla’s potential to grow in the Asian market. Everybody knows China is a huge opportunity since it is both the largest auto market in the world and it seems to get pretty good support from the government, which seems to be trying to address the air pollution issue in the country, but I wanted to look at the size of all the rest of Asia.
South Korea is an interesting case in “Electric Vehicle World.” LG Chem, probably the most notable EV battery company not connected to Tesla, is based there. It seems like LG Chem has battery contracts with every single automaker (it might be more like 60%). SK Innovation and Samsung SDI, medium-sized battery producers, also call Korea home. And then there are Hyundai and Kia, or Hyundai–Kia if you combine them due to their intertwined investment structure. These large automakers have produced highly acclaimed electric vehicles, but they struggle to produce a large number of them — or just don’t care to do so.
In a move that may benefit Tesla, the government of South Korea is considering changes to its electric vehicle subsidy rules, ones which would open up subsidy qualification to long-range offerings.
Originally published on EV Obsession. Tesla Motors will be opening up a new office in the Gangnam district of Seoul, Korea, following the recent filing of incorporation papers with the government there, according to a recent report from the Korea Times. The creation of the “new” company — Tesla Korea … [continued]
