Indonesia’s Jokowi Meets Tesla’s Musk Right after Nickel Talks | Engineering News

JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesian President Joko Widodo fulfilled Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk on Saturday in Texas to examine likely investments and technologies, Indonesia’s governing administration mentioned in a statement.

The conference amongst Musk and Widodo, superior regarded as Jokowi, arrived following a round of doing the job-stage discussions on a likely investment decision in Indonesia’s nickel industry and supply of batteries for electric powered automobiles, Indonesian officials informed Reuters.

Reps from Tesla had been in Indonesia final week for meetings with regards to a possible battery-related investment, Indonesian officials and two people familiar with the talks have said.

Tesla experienced no rapid comment.

Indonesia for yrs has been trying to protected a offer with Tesla on battery investment and most likely for Musk’s SpaceX aerospace firm.

Jokowi traveled from Washington, wherever he attended a meeting of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to fulfill Musk at the SpaceX launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. He invited the billionaire to stop by Indonesia in November.

Jokowi is to host a summit of the Group of 20 large economies in Bali in November. “Ideally in November,” the Indonesian govt quoted Musk as stating.

Musk reported there could be space for “partnerships in quite a few factors, because Indonesia has a ton of potential”, the statement explained.

Indonesia has the world’s most significant nickel reserves, and Jokowi is keen to build a nickel-primarily based EV field at household – from producing nickel metallic, to generating battery factors and assembling electric powered automobiles. In the past, he has also urged Musk to think about a rocket start web page in Indonesia.

Two discounts above the earlier thirty day period have specified new momentum to Jokowi’s press to produce an EV-related sector at a time when world automakers have been scrambling to secure materials of battery materials and lessen their reliance on China.

A consortium led by South Korea’s LG Electrical power Resolution Ltd, the world wide No. 2 maker of EV batteries, declared options final month to invest $9 billion in Indonesia as section of a offer that would involve every little thing from nickel refining to manufacturing battery cells in Indonesia.

LG’s larger sized rival, China-primarily based Present-day Amperex Engineering, a Tesla provider, introduced a $9-billion Indonesia financial investment in April.

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto in Jakarta Further reporting by Ed Davies, Norihiko Shirouzu, Gavin Maguire and Fransiska Nangoy Writing by Kevin Krolicki Modifying by William Mallard)

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