TESLA PICKS TEXAS SITE FOR SECOND US VEHICLE ASSEMBLY PLANT

Electric car maker Tesla Inc. has picked the Austin, Texas, area as the site for its largest auto assembly plant employing at least 5,000 workers.

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The new factory will build Tesla’s upcoming Cybertruck pickup and will be a second U.S. manufacturing site for the Model Y small SUV, largely for distribution to the East Coast.

Tesla will build on a 2,100-acre (85-hectare) site in Travis County near Austin and will get more than $60 million in tax breaks from the county and a local school district over the next decade. Work on the plant, which will be over 4 million square feet, is already underway, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said.

He did not put a number on how many vehicles the facility would produce. “Long term, a lot,” Musk said.

The company has pledged to invest $1.1 billion and said it will pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour to employees and provide health insurance, paid leave and other benefits.

The area that’s home to the University of Texas at Austin and tech companies such as Dell Inc. was a candidate for the plant all along, but Tulsa, Oklahoma, emerged in mid-May as another possibility.