US electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla this week updated the progress of its new car plant currently under construction in Shanghai which will be the company’s first overseas full production plant [the Netherlands factory which completes cars for Europe is only a final assembly operation].
Tesla has said it has earmarked investments totaling CNY50bn (US$7bn) in China with an immediate target of bringing online an initial 250,000 units a year of production capacity by the end of 2019.
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Construction of the main part of the plant, which is located in the Lingang district of Shanghai, has been completed, the company said.
This included the body shop, paint shop and final assembly lines.
The company confirmed the first cars are scheduled to roll off the production line by the end of 2019 with the first model expected to be the Model 3.
Tesla’s global vice-president Tao Lin said the company broke ground on the plant, just six months after signing contracts with the Shanghai municipal government in July 2018, which she said reflected the efficiency of doing business in the Lingang Special Area – which is dedicated to high-end manufacturing such as electronics and biomedicines.
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By GlobalDataCEO Elon Musk in a Twitter message said Tesla was putting together a “major engineering team in China with a heavy focus on software/firmware for factory and cars”.
The update was given during an official contract signing ceremony between Lingang’s administrative body and companies involved in 24 individual connectivity projects covering intelligent connected electric vehicles, connected manufacturing and services and functional platforms, involving total investments of CNY8bn.
Lingang Special Area executive deputy director Zhu Zhisong said that an industrial cluster of intelligent connected electric vehicles is taking shape there.
An area of seven square kilometres has been set aside for closed tests of unmanned intelligent connected vehicles and there is 26km of roads dedicated to open tests of driverless cars.
