Tesla to Build New Battery Factory in China!

Apr 10, 2023 thejournalbiz

China is the second-largest market for Tesla after the U.S.

Tesla Inc. is building a factory in Shanghai to produce its Megapack battery, the company and its chief executive, Elon Musk, said, further expanding into the country at a time of fraught U.S.-China ties.

Tweet on China expansion by Tesla

Our next Megafactory will be in Shanghai 🇨🇳—capable of producing 10k Megapacks per year pic.twitter.com/KlVGq5gYOg

— Tesla (@Tesla) April 9, 2023

Tesla announcement

The new factory, where Tesla will manufacture its high-capacity battery for energy storage, is scheduled to break ground in the third quarter this year and start production in the second quarter of 2024, Chinese state media Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.

The amount of Tesla’s investment wasn’t immediately clear.

Tesla posted a photo of a signing ceremony in a tweet and said it plans to produce 10,000 Megapack units every year. That is equal to about 40 gigawatt hours of energy storage, and the product will be sold worldwide, Xinhua said. A Megapack unit can store enough energy to power an average of 3,600 homes for one hour, according to Tesla.

The planned expansion by Tesla, which already has a car plant in Shanghai, comes as geopolitical tensions grow between Washington and Beijing, and as economic uncertainties linger in China—factors that are causing many U.S. businesses to be wary of making new investments into the country.

China is the second-largest market for Tesla after the U.S., accounting for nearly a quarter of its revenue in 2022. Its car plant in Shanghai, located on the outskirts of the city, accounts for roughly half of the company’s global car deliveries.