Brexit Is the Reason the U.K. Missed Out on Elon Musk’s Tesla Gigafactory

(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. was once a candidate for Tesla Inc. to locate its European research and manufacturing facilities, but Brexit thwarted those plans, according to Elon Musk.

Uncertainty around the decision to leave the European Union “made it too risky to put a gigafactory” in the U.K., the Tesla chief executive officer told automotive outlet Auto Express.

Instead, the electric-car maker will be building its plant and a research-and-development center around Berlin, Musk announced on Tuesday night at an awards ceremony where the executive also picked up a trophy for the company’s Model 3 car.

A Tesla site in the U.K. would have provided a much-needed boost to the country that’s seen automotive production slide this year. Last month, Dyson Ltd. announced it was scrapping plans to build an electric car, though the U.K.-founded company had plotted to manufacture them in Singapore.

Back in 2014, Musk told Auto Express he envisioned the U.K. as the place for an R&D center and potentially a European factory. That was two years before the country voted to leave the EU.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oliver Sachgau in Munich at osachgau@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net;Tara Patel at tpatel2@bloomberg.net

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