“What we want is not the battery, but the electric car. “We want Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) to build electric cars in Indonesia,” President Joko Widodo told John Micklethwait, the head of Bloomberg News, in an interview on Thursday. “We want a lot of electric cars to work together.”
The president, who is known as Jokowi, said that he expected the same things from Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F), Hyundai Motor Co. (KRX: 005380), and Toyota Motor Corp. (TYO: 7203), and Suzuki Motor Corp (TYO: 7269). This showed that he wanted to get investments and make sure that Indonesia wasn’t just a source of raw materials or a maker of parts in the global supply chain for electric vehicles.
In recent years, the Southeast Asian country, which has almost a quarter of the world’s nickel reserves, has become a significant producer. That makes it a beautiful place for car and battery makers, like Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), to go to find materials for batteries.
Indonesia says that Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has a deal to supply nickel worth $5 billion.
When asked what’s stopping a deal with Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), Jokowi said, “It’s still being talked about.” “It takes time for everything. I don’t want to be fast but get nothing done. It needs a lot of talking, and the results will be clear.”
In May, a government official in Indonesia said that the country was setting up a meeting between the president and Musk to discuss possible investments. A team from the first company made electric vehicles also went to several places in Indonesia. A statement from Jokowi’s office in May said that Musk said he was thinking about going to Indonesia “hopefully in November” to look for business opportunities.
Musk is thinking about going to Indonesia to look into possible investments.
Over several years, the government has talked with Musk’s team about possible partnerships, including the development of electric vehicles (EVs) with Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) and the possibility of a SpaceX rocket launch site in the country. However, no deals have been made.
Indonesia has some of the most extensive deposits of copper, nickel, and tin in the world. So far, most of Indonesia’s nickel has been exported as a raw material for steel plants in China and other places. However, Jokowi’s government wants to change Indonesia into an EV and battery hub.
Featured Image : Megapixl © Grigvovan
