Tesla factories are shaping politics in Monterrey and India – Rest of World

Last week, the Indian press seemed to conjure a new model of Tesla out of thin air. The Times of India reported on Thursday that Tesla was planning to build a factory entirely devoted to cars priced at 20 lakh rupees, or roughly $24,000. But on Tesla’s quarterly earnings call last night, there was no mention of any plans around India specifically — much less a new Tesla model aimed at the Indian market. It’s the kind of information that would normally light up newswires – but so far things have stayed suspiciously silent. It’s a politically beneficial rumor for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but there’s no sign it’s anything more than that.

Outside of the earnings call, Elon Musk has done plenty to fuel speculation about Tesla touching down in India. When he met with Modi in June, Musk gushed about being the prime minister’s “fan” and said he wanted to bring Tesla to India “as soon as possible,” although he stayed coy about exactly what that meant.

All manufacturing companies play this game to some extent, but something about Tesla seems to make politicians’ eyes light up. In Mexico, Nuevo Leon governor Samuel García has spent months lavishing Musk with praise in anticipation of Tesla’s incoming Monterrey factory, which he sees as a boon to his just-launched presidential campaign. Most recently, he called Musk the “most visionary man in the world,” and pledged to name his son after the Tesla CEO. (Samu Elon, as García styles it, translates roughly to “big Samuel” in Mexican slang.)

It’s clear enough why politicians see these deals as wins. The promise of a new factory means new jobs and fresh investments. But the long timeline of these projects means the politicians are rarely held accountable for whether the promise pans out. In Monterrey, locals are already raising concerns about how the Tesla factory will affect the city’s ongoing water shortage. But García’s presidential bid will be long finished by the time the factory launches. If the water concerns prove true, they will be someone else’s problem.

A similar process has already played out in Buffalo, New York, where then-Governor Andrew Cuomo lobbied hard for a Tesla factory, finally winning the deal in 2015. The factory was supposed to turn western New York into a hub for manufacturing solar roofing tiles — a dream come true for the former industrial hub. Eight years later, Tesla’s factory is only producing a trickle of solar tiles, and much of the workforce is doing annotation clickwork for Tesla’s self-driving program. Massive state subsidies mean the deal was a winner for Tesla, but no one else seems to have come out of it well. Faced with mounting sexual harassment scandals, Cuomo resigned in disgrace in 2021.

Of all the politicians, Modi seems to have played the game the smartest. He can get the good headlines ahead of India’s elections in 2024 — even if the factory never gets built.