BERLIN, June 25 (Xinhua) -- The regional government of Saarland wrote a public letter to Tesla's chief executive officer (CEO) Elon Musk on Monday, inviting the U.S. electric car maker to open a new European production site in the Western German state.
Earlier, Musk had described Germany as a "leading choice" for the location of the planned facility on Twitter. He further expressed a specific preference for a site on the Franco-German border near the Benelux region which includes the wealthy and densely-populated countries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
In the public letter to the CEO, the regional government of Saarland said the state fulfilled several important criteria for the successful production of cars. Aside from its favorable geographic location, Saarland already boasts a broad-based local automotive industry and is known as a leader in information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Tesla already operates one European assembly line in the Netherlands. The U.S. company is currently looking for a new site to open a second European "Gigafactory" to produce vehicles as well as batteries alongside its existing facility in Nevada, the United States.
So far, the only manufacturing venture of the electric car maker in Germany is the Pruem-based machine engineering company Grohmann, which Musk acquired in 2016 in order to gain access to its automation technologies. The regional government of Saarland extended an invitation to the CEO on Monday to visit their state to assess its qualities as an investment destination.