[Report] Tesla To Announce Plant In Mexico As Soon As Next Week

According to Bloomberg News, several people familiar with the matter said that Tesla will announce the establishment of a car assembly plant in Mexico as soon as next week. Tesla is currently finalizing plans for the project.

The plant will be located in Santa Catarina, the capital of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, in Monterrey, the people said. Final details are still being hammered out and Tesla is in discussions with officials at the Mexican foreign ministry and Nuevo Leon state, one of the people said.

Tesla has yet to comment on this.

In October, Tesla CEO Elon Musk visited Nuevo Leon state and met with officials there. Moreover, Tesla's previous relationship with the state government has won it exclusive customs lanes, allowing some parts to cross the border into Texas.

The factory will be Tesla's first south of the U.S. border and is part of Tesla's efforts to expand global manufacturing. In addition to the U.S. factory, Tesla has previously built large car assembly plants in China and Germany.

In fact, Tesla has been considering building a third factory in North America after California and Texas. In August of this year, Musk also informed shareholders that a new factory construction decision may be made before the end of this year.

The move comes just days after Mexico and Canada won a trade dispute with the United States over transporting cars across regions, a development that gives automakers more incentive to build cars in those countries.

And, under a U.S. law signed in August, an electric vehicle built in North America, including Canada and Mexico, is eligible for subsidies as long as it meets certain battery requirements. The law aims to stimulate the adoption of electric vehicles.

It was not immediately clear which vehicles Tesla would build at its Mexico plant or when production would begin. Those details are likely to be released in the coming days, the people said.

The Tesla plant will be located in an "automotive corridor" in the state of Nuevo Leon that is already home to plants from General Motors and Kia Motors. Ford Motor Co. also makes the Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle in Cuautitlan, near Mexico City.

Musk has set an ambitious goal of selling 20 million electric vehicles a year by 2030, which would make Tesla twice the size of any other automaker and account for 20% of global car sales.