Nevada governor outlines $335M deal to draw $1B carmaker

In 2014, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval convened a special session to approve tax incentives worth as much as $1.25 billion for Tesla’s Reno factory.

Economic development officials and Faraday executives appeared with the Republican governor at a press conference Thursday morning in Las Vegas.

Faraday said that they chose North Las Vegas to be the location of their production facility due to the long list of benefits it provides.

Faraday Future’s new factory will be built in Clark County’s APEX Industrial Park and ground breaking for the plant is scheduled in January.

Not much is known about Faraday Future, other than its plans to unveil a prototype auto at the next Consumer Electronics Show, but it’s following the lead of Tesla by moving to the Nevada desert: Elon Musk recently announced that Tesla’s own sprawling production facility, the Gigafactory, was destined to open in Sparks, Nevada by 2020.

Even though the Legislature still must sign off on the deal, North Las Vegas is ramping up to speed Faraday through the city’s planning process.

Nevada is expected to offer $215m in tax incentives and credits over 15 years.

Other improvement projects include building a rail port at the park.

Faraday plans to employ 4,500 people when the plant reaches maturity in 2023.

The company, which has said it expects to have 500 workers by the end of this year, has hired about 60 former Tesla employees, according to their profiles on LinkedIn.

Sandoval said his administration estimated the plant would bring benefits to state coffers of around US$760mil (RM3.26bil) over the course of 20 years and would create a total of 13,000 jobs, including 3,000 in construction.

Jock O’Connell, worldwide trade economist with Beacon Economics in California, said he remained doubtful.

“It would be wise to be skeptical about a timetable to build cars this quickly”, he said. “This could be a way to develop technology that can’t be developed in China”.