Tesla Vehicles Will Be 90% American-Made After Gigafactory
Production of Tesla's lithium-ion batteries in America would make the brand's vehicles the most American-made.
The Gigafactory could serve to make Tesla cars the most American-made.
When you think of American-made vehicles, you think of muscle cars, burly pickups, and the Canyonero. There are a great many American brands that have emigrated a good deal of their sourcing and manufacturing operations overseas and just as many foreign brands who have immigrated these functions and the jobs they bring into the United States, blurring the lines of what constitutes an American brand. Upon completion of the Gigafactory, Tesla may be able to lay claim to the most American-made brand in the automotive industry.
Of the 10 vehicles on the Cars.com 2013 American-Made Index, half of them belong to brands that originate in Japan. There was once a point in time where Americans feared that brands like Toyota and Honda would put American automakers out of business and take away jobs. In 2014, Honda and Toyota are among American automotive manufacturing’s most prominent job-makers. Future versions of the Cars.com list may have a new number one, however, with the news that Tesla’s Gigafactory would increase the Americanness of its parts to 90 percent, which would beat even the F-150 by a wide margin.
Quartz reports that the projected 2017 completion of the lithium-ion battery-producing Gigafactory would mean that 90 percent of all parts used in the assembly of Tesla vehicles will be American-sourced. Of course, there is the fact that Ford has recently “reshored” manufacturing of the F-150 in Ohio, which will increase the F-Series’ Americanness.
In many ways, Tesla has all of the hallmarks of being The Great American Company. It’s a loveable underdog run by a naturalized citizen from South Africa, fueled by ideologies and innovation, and looking to share the wealth with its fellow countrymen.
How important is a car’s Americanness to you? Does it even rank? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.