Tuesday, May 2, 2017

A South African Gigafactory?

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, indicated during a recent TED talk that Tesla would be announcing the construction of up to 4 more Gigafactories before the end of the year. At the moment there is just one Gigafactory producing lithium batteries for Tesla vehicles and Powerwalls in Nevada. This article from Electrek suggests that the new Gigafactories might be built in Buffalo, China and somewhere in Europe. It also mentions that it is anybody's guess where the fourth factory might be built.

Tesla Gigafactory
Though Tesla have denied there are plans to build a Gigafactory in South Africa, I can't help thinking it would be an ideal location for a Gigafactory. South Africa is a gateway to Africa and many other parts of the World.

Africa is potentially a massive market for Tesla's Powerwall, home battery pack and solar panels. Solar power charging a Powerwall could bring electricity to remote locations on the continent that are not on any electrical grid. It will mean that people will no longer have to wait on municipalities and traditional energy companies to bring them power. Not only will it bring power to peoples homes, it will enable them to also charge electric vehicles. Locations far from the nearest petrol station will be able to power their own transport.

Not only is South Africa the perfect place to manufacture and distribute Tesla products throughout the African continent, it also has many large ports and is on many major shipping routes. Being at the bottom tip of the continent, it'll be equally easy to ship Tesla batteries to South America, Asia, Middle East & Australasia. With North America, Europe & China seemingly already covered a South African Gigafactory could take care of the rest of the World. 

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