Tesla Motors(NASDAQ: TSLA)was doing what it does best and making headlines this week. However, with so much attention focused on the electric-car maker’s Gigafactory site selection, investors may have missed other key developments. Here are three things you need to know about Tesla Motors’ start to the month of September.
Nevada wins Gigafactory deal Let’s get the most obvious piece of news out of the way. Tesla Motors announced this week that Nevada will be the official home of Tesla’s $5 billion battery factory. The Silver State beat out five other states for the coveted deal including Texas and California. However, it didn’t win the Gigafactory by offering Tesla Motors the richest incentives. Instead, Nevada took home the prize by assuring Tesla’s Chief Executive Elon Musk that it would help the EV maker get the factory up and running faster than other states.
“The biggest single factor was time to completion, because unless the Gigafactory is ready when we need to produce the mass market affordable electric car than the vehicle factory will be stalled,” Musk explained in an interview with CNBC. By building the large scale factory in the state Tesla can take advantage of Nevada’s existing rail line, which links directly to the company’s Fremont, California assembly plant. Nevada is also a good fit because it houses the only active lithium mine in the United States today — a raw material Tesla needs for its lithium-ion batteries.
Tesla has broken ground on the plant’s location just outside of Reno, and says it is on schedule to have the Gigafactory open by early 2017.
Insiders are sellingThe second thing investors should know about Tesla Motors this week is that key insiders dumped shares. Two of Tesla’s directors including Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal Musk, as well as its chief financial officer recently sold shares — dumping a total of 53,606 Tesla Motors shares this week. Does this mean you should dump the stock too? Probably not. It is important to keep an eye on insider selling, but equally important to remember that people sell shares for many reasons.
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