Nickel-rich Indonesia pitches EV battery factory plans to Elon Musk – Winnipeg Free Press

DENPASAR, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's top investment official said Monday that the government has offered Tesla CEO Elon Musk to build an electric car battery plant in the nickel-rich country.

Musk, the official, spoke after meeting Indonesian President Joko Widodo while attending a water conference in Bali.

“We proposed, could we build an EV battery factory here, which is a precursor to cathodes? And he said he would consider it,” Maritime Affairs and Investments Coordinator Luhut Binsar Panjaitan told reporters.

Indonesia is eager to build industries to exploit its rich natural resources, which include the world's largest nickel reserves. Nickel is an important material for electric car batteries and solar cells.

The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of social platform X visited the Indonesian resort island to launch Starlink satellite internet service.

He also spoke to officials and experts attending a conference on global water issues, saying he believes desalination can solve water shortages if enough power is provided.

Indonesia supplies 40% of the world's nickel and has the potential to increase that to 75% by 2030, according to government data. The government has set a target of 600,000 electric vehicles by 2030 and requires 60% local content of electric vehicles and related components produced in Indonesia by 2027.

The country has been trying for years to invest in batteries with Musk's Tesla and Musk's SpaceX to provide fast internet access to remote areas of the sprawling archipelago.

Panjaitan, a powerful cabinet minister and close ally of Widodo, has asked the billionaire president to invest in an AI center and for SpaceX to build a launch pad on Biak Island in Indonesia's eastern Papua province.

Musk has not made any official announcements regarding his investment plans in Southeast Asia's largest economy.

“I think we're going to invest,” Musk said when asked by a reporter about his plans for Indonesia at a news conference after launching Starlink with dignitaries from the Indonesian government on Sunday. “But I think it is very possible for my company to invest in Indonesia.”

In the United States, federal highway safety investigators are asking Tesla to explain how and why it made the correction in a recall of more than 2 million vehicles equipped with the company's Autopilot semi-automated driving system.

Investigators with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are concerned whether the recall has worked because Tesla has reported 20 crashes since the tool was sent as an online software update in December.

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Carmini reported from Jakarta, Indonesia