Tesla makes pitch for Texas plant
Executives from Tesla used an unassuming job-type description in their pitch to a Texas county on the merits of the carmaker’s Cybertruck plant project.
The factory would bring 5,000 “middle-skill” jobs to Travis County, according to the presentation Tesla officials delivered during an online meeting Tuesday. The carmaker says it will create positions that pay solid wages without requiring substantial levels of higher education.
The pitch is an early indication of how companies may tout economic-development projects to localities that have sustained significant job losses following the coronavirus outbreak. The unemployment rate for Travis County, which is home to the Texas capital city of Austin, soared to 12.4 percent in April from 2.2 percent a year earlier, according to Federal Reserve data.
Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk first announced plans in March to build Tesla’s second U.S. auto assembly plant that will produce the still-in-development Cybertruck and Model Y crossovers for customers on the East Coast.
Tesla envisions spending $1 billion on the facility, which will span as much as 5 million square feet of space once it’s fully constructed. The company says the project would “make immediate and long-lasting impacts” on the local economy, where almost half of leisure and hospitality jobs were lost from February to April. The average annual salary of permanent employees at the proposed plant would be $47,147.