Alsace Calls For Tesla
Originally published on EV Obsession.
Following the offhand comments that Tesla CEO Elon Musk made about possibly opening a production facility in Alsace when speaking in France recently, a number of French entrepreneurs have decided to launch a campaign to try to lure the noted electric vehicle manufacturer to do exactly that, according to recent reports.
In particular, the French communications agency Blackblitz Strassbourg decided to create a new video highlighting the reasons why creating a production facility in Alsace, France, would be beneficial.
“We had heard of Elon Musk, who said he planned to settle on Alsace, and we decided to make a promotional video, a project totally free from coercion, jumping on the subject,” stated Blackblitz Strassbourg partner Greg Matter, in an interview with Agence France Presse.
Worth noting is that the Tesla used in the video is owned by a local businessman, and, perhaps more importantly, that the bank that owns the loan on the Tesla bankrolled the video production. I wonder why? 
“Now we bet on the magic of social networks to reach Elon Musk,” Matter continued. He apparently sent the video directly to Elon Musk (via Twitter) himself.
Teslarati provides more:
Alsace is a region that has been fought over in two world wars and seen occupation by both France and Germany. The inhabitants there trace their lineage to both countries and most are fully bilingual. If half the factory could be in Germany and half in France, that would be the best of all possible worlds, Musk said.
…French news site Essential picked up the story and reports that Jean Rottner, the mayor of Mulhouse in the Alsace region, retweeted the link to the video to the French ministers of the economy and the environment: “@Emmanuel Macron @RoyalSegolene We are ready! And you? Support the #Alsace.”
While there’s likely some possibility that Tesla will eventually bring production to the region, something tells me that the company’s decision-making processes rely on more than just the viewing of videos like the one above.
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I doubt that the factory can be built *literally atop the Rhine River*, but in order to put it in Alsace and partly in Germany, I suppose Lauterbourg would work!
This is a very long shot. Alsace is prosperous, and any factory there would attract lower incentives than in high unemployment regions like Lorraine or Nord-Pas de Calais. France is much more pro-ev than Germany and the country is certainly a possibility.
Bugattis were lovingly hand-built in the pretty Alsatian village of Molsheim.
I was riffing off of Elon’s joke about having the factory half in France and half in Germany.
Everyone knows what French workers and French unions are like to work with by now. I see very, very little chance of Tesla opening a factory in France, to put it mildly.
French workers are more productive than American per hour worked, according to the OECD. The difference in GDP is explained by the much smaller number of hours worked, leaving time for the enjoyment of life. The Millau motorway viaduct over the Tarn, the highest normal bridge in the world (that is, excluding terrifying rope contraptions in the Himalayas), was built on time, on budget, and with zero worker deaths. Any more Frog-bashing?
All we are saying is give peace a chance. The likelihood of a EU plant is high. Where in EU is still a long shot for any region.
Probably Slovakia. Much more likely than France or Germany.
They have been talks about a hyperloop from Vienna through Slovakia too.
From a logistics point of view, Germany is probably the right country, I’m afraid. There are two ways to do it: one is to locate near one of the northern ports like Hamburg, and the other is to locate near one of the southern rail hubs like Karlsruhe. Milan would be OK too.
True. And electricity is very cheap.
According to this, Germany and Denmark have the highest electricity prices in the EU.
/www.euractiv.com/section/energy/video/electricity-prices-in-europe/
But we are talking about industry here and even consumers do not have to pay more than 18ct/kWh if they bother.
The EU 27 and EU 28 average cost for industrial electricity is 9 euro cents per kWh.
The price of industrial electricity in Germany is 8 e cents.
The price of industrial electricity in Denmark is 6 e cents.
Both Germany and Denmark have very high taxes included in retail electricity rates. Your link if for retail/household prices. You can find industrial prices on the Eurostat database….
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database
I wish the nuclear power cultists who troll this site would show up and do something useful by telling this guy that France rules.
Greece. Put the factory in a country that really needs more business.