The electric vehicle builder closes its site in Tilburg, just above the Dutch border. There, cars are assembled with pieces from the American factory. In 2015, Antwerp was in the running to attract that investment to the Opel site in the port.
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Het Financieele Dagblad reports that the site in Tilburg will be closed “shortly”, less than five years after it was launched. 96 jobs are disappearing. Tesla no longer considers it necessary to assemble the pieces that are flown in from the US in the south of the Netherlands. Tilburg made the Model S and Model X, the oldest models whose popularity pales from that of the younger and more affordable Model 3 and Model Y.
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Normally this summer a “real” Tesla factory will open its doors near Berlin, where car production can take place from start to finish under the same roof. From there, one Tesla after another will start rolling on European roads.
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The victims of the closure could also have been Belgians. When it had to be decided in the summer of 2015 where the assembly plant would be located in Western Europe, Antwerp was a realistic option. Mayor Bart De Wever (N-VA) received CEO Elon Musk on the Schoon Verdiep, and then they drove together electrically to the Churchill dock, where the Opel site used to be.
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A little later it became clear that Tesla preferred to settle just above the Belgian-Dutch border. Having the cars for the European market put together by our northern neighbors gave Tesla a substantial tax advantage.
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