Tesla chooses Germany for its new European Gigafactory- making cars, batteries etc... https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1194364798407852032

“Brexit [uncertainty] made it too risky to put a Gigafactory in the UK,” perhaps worlds greatest entrepreneur Elon Musk told AutoExpress at launch of Berlin European electric car/battery plant - NB Telegraph report PMs GE speech at electric car plant... https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/tesla/108395/tesla-gigafactory-europe-heads-to-germany-not-uk-as-elon-musk-blames-brexit-uncertainty

specific technical issue around electric cars and Brexit that I reported a year ago.

The value of the electric battery powertrain is a large proportion of value of finished car, much more than petrol engine would be.

Therefore, v difficult to risk it not counting as EU content

...there are thresholds for what qualifies for tariff free treatment in trade deals with say Korea or Japan, anywhere really. These are being tightened up eg by Trump.

Fail to meet threshold, and the car will attract a tariff.

Now you can “cumulate” but that requires close deal

“Cumulation” - essentially counting UK & EU parts as interchangeable and counting towards 55% threshold, might be negotiated as part of future relationship...but explicit reference to not checking for “rules of origin” in May deal was removed in Johnson deal as linked to backstop

Bank of England pointed to this issue last week, alongside introduction of customs checks on Uk-EU trade under new Brexit deal...

Such factors have created extra challenges for UK to attract quantum leap in autoinvestment to electric for carmakers using pan EU supply chains...

So these are challenges for UK effort to build Gigafactory for electric cars/batteries, as Govt said it wants. Perhaps mitigated by huge state funding.

While Tesla always looking at continent, Musk words illustrate challenge here from perceptions of intl investors.

Re square brackets in “Brexit [uncertainty]” - thats AE journalist’s contextualisation of his quote. To be clear, Musk asked if he considered UK for Gigafactory (NB he had mentioned a long term plan in 2014) - answer was: “Brexit made it too risky to put a Gigafactory in the UK”

NB - Dominic Cummings on first day in Downing Street sporting Elon Musk “Open AI” t-shirt... HT @mattholehouse @rowlsmanthorpe https://twitter.com/rowlsmanthorpe/status/1154094257092923393?s=21