Tesla's next gigafactory could be in South Korea

Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian joins the Live show to discuss reports that Tesla's next gigafactory in Asia will be in South Korea.

Video Transcript

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AKIKO FUJITA: And shifting our attention from Twitter back to Tesla, Pras, we're seeing the stock pop today on this report that South Korea could potentially be in line as hosting the next gigafactory for Tesla.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, that's right, Akiko. The South Korean president's office mentioned that he had a video call with Elon Musk, and Musk was quoted as saying that he had some positive commentary about South Korea being a top candidate for a new Asian factory there-- a new gigafactory.

In fact, Musk was quoted as saying, "We expect to buy components worth more than $10 billion from South Korean firms in 2023 as we significantly expand supply chain cooperation with South Korean companies." So President Yeol also said he'd like to reform unreasonable regulations that have hindered big tech investment in the country.

Now, the big setup here is that India and Indonesia are also competing for a gigafactory, a Tesla gigafactory, which, you know, is kind of a big deal because Tesla wants to make around 20 million cars a year. To have that kind of install capacity would need around eight more plants or so.

Musk has mentioned that Canada is a good location, a location that they were looking at. And a second location in Asia would makes sense here. Plus, Tesla already works with South Korea's LG energy solution battery. So pretty smart relationship there. And for making cars, Korea makes sense.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, it certainly makes sense from a supply chain standpoint, to your point. Pras Subramanian and Alexis Keenan with the Musk round-up, thanks so much for that.