RELEVANT NEWS

Tesla Will Build A Battery Mega Factory In Shanghai

U.S. electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla announced the construction of a new mega factory in Shanghai, which will be dedicated to the manufacture of the brand’s energy storage product, named Megapack.

Construction is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of this year, with production scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2024, the company announced at a project signing ceremony in Shanghai.

The new factory will initially produce 10,000 Megapack units each year, equivalent to about 40 GWh of energy storage. The products produced there will be sold worldwide.

The plant will be located in the Pilot Free Trade Zone of China’s Lingang Special Area (Shanghai).

Construction of the factory is expected to give rise to another industrial cluster worth more than 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion), said Lu Yu, an official with the Lingang Special Area Administration.

Zhuang Mudi, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Municipal Government, argued that the project will help boost the development of the nascent energy storage industry and the metropolis’ green and low-carbon transformation.

As Tesla’s first gigafactory outside the United States, the plant delivered 710,000 vehicles in 2022, a yearon-year increase of 48 percent.

It has become the brand’s main vehicle export hub, with electric cars selling well in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and other regions.

Since 2019, Tesla has been increasing investment in Lingang, expanding production capacity at the Shanghai factory, and building more facilities, including a supercharger manufacturing factory.

In January 2019, Tesla broke ground on its Shanghai gigafactory, becoming the first to benefit from a new policy that allows foreign automakers to set up wholly-owned subsidiaries in China.

Thanks to the excellent business environment in Shanghai and Lingang Special Area, Tesla’s gigafactory has an industrial chain localization rate of more than 95 percent, said Tao Lin, vice president of the company.