Tesla to Expand to Massive Industrial Park in Kyle

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during the Edison Electric Institute Annual Conference on June 13 (Photo by John Anderson)

Tesla’s operations are seemingly ever-expanding – first Austin with the Gigafactory, then Bastrop with the Boring Company, and now Kyle.

As part of its planned $770 million expansion announced earlier this year, Tesla will lease three of five warehouses in a new 1.4-million-square-foot industrial park in Kyle called 35 Logistics, Kyle Mayor Travis Mitchell announced in his state of the city address today. (The entire development is about 20% bigger than the Domain, for reference.) Tesla is the first tenant and will occupy most of the park, which is one of the first projects over a million square feet between Austin and San Antonio – a corridor that will only continue to boom with development.

It’s unclear what the new facilities will be used for – Mitchell referred to Tesla’s intentions as “a little cloak and dagger” – but presumably it will have something to do with the Gigafactory in eastern Travis County. The Gigafactory’s suppliers are fueling rapid expansion in the region: Simwon NA Corp., an auto body manufacturer, has a factory in Kyle, as does plastic parts manufacturer Plastikon Industries Inc., and electric vehicle supplier HBPO recently opened a facility in Manor. In another clue as to what the site will be used for, Tesla told regulators in January that the $770 million expansion will include a battery cell testing site and cathode and drive unit manufacturing site.

Like Travis County with the Gigafactory, both the city of Kyle and Hays County have provided property tax abatements up to 75% for 10 years – Kyle up to $4.9 million, and Hays County with $3.4 million, the Austin Business Journal reported. We don’t know how many people will be employed at the new facility.