TAIPEI – Taiwanese Pegatron has chosen a site in El Paso, Texas, to build a factory that will supply components for Tesla, Taiwan’s Commercial Times reported Wednesday.
The company said details of the investments in foreign factories, including timing, location and investment amounts, were still in the planning stages.
Pegatron said in November that it would set up a factory in the United States to be closer to its customers there.
Pegatron builds electronic components and is best known as a major display supplier to Apple, but has said it sees electric vehicles as a major source of growth in the coming years. For example, it makes the central control screen in the Tesla Model 3.
In other Tesla news, a vice president of the US automaker China assured that data collected from Teslas in China will be stored in China. The comment was in response to reports that the Chinese military has banned Teslas from its facilities.
“As a company with operations in China, Tesla must comply with Chinese laws and regulations,” Tao Lin told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday. “Our data is very well protected. Chinese data is stored in China.”
Tao said Tesla, which builds electric Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossovers in Shanghai, would share its knowledge of data protection with the Chinese government.
Sources have told Reuters that the Chinese military had banned Tesla cars from accessing its complexes, citing concerns about the safety of cameras installed on the vehicles.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that when the problem arose in March, his company would be shut down if his cars were used for spying.