Tesla to open integrated customer experience centre in Zhuhai, make city its Greater Bay Area base

The 21,530 sq ft experience centre opens at the Zhuhai Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone on Friday
Zhuhai will be the pivot of Tesla’s future development in the Greater Bay Area, says executive

Zhuhai

Pearl Liu

Published: 1:30pm, 19 Nov 2020

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Tesla is opening an integrated customer experience centre in Zhuhai, and plans to use the southern Chinese city as the base for its operations in the Greater Bay Area.

The 2,000 square metre (21,530 sq ft) Tesla experience centre, which opens on Friday, will allow fans of the US carmaker to get a closer look at the various models, while also offering test drives, sales and after-sales service.

The centre will be located at the Zhuhai Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone. It follows close on the heels of the California-based EV maker’s experience centre in Shanghai, which opened in May.

“Zhuhai will be the pivot of Tesla’s future development in the Greater Bay Area, and will push forward the EV [electric vehicle] industry development in Guangzhou and Shenzhen,” said Chen Qinghua, Tesla’s south China government affairs executive, during a meeting with Zhuhai officials last week.

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Zhuhai government officials said during the meeting that it expects further cooperation with the US electric car maker.

The role of Zhuhai, one of the nine Guangdong province cities in the Greater Bay Area, is to “strengthen the energy storage and transport system”, according to the Outline Development Plan for bay area, released by the central government in February last year.

The Greater Bay Area is set to play a big role in achieving this, aiming to become a clean energy and low-carbon region, with the goal of progressively developing renewable energy sources.

Tesla is the runaway leader in China’s electric car market – the world’s largest. The company opened its first overseas manufacturing plant, Gigafactory 3, in Shanghai, in late 2019. It has delivered 92,051 Shanghai-made Model 3 cars in the first 10 months, making it the bestselling model on the mainland.

Tesla has delivered 92,051 Shanghai-made Model 3 cars in the first 10 months of the year. Photo: Reuters

However, competition has been heating up as a number of home-grown start-ups, including Li Auto, NIO and Xpeng Motors are all keen on grabbing a bigger slice of the domestic market.

Beijing push for more green vehicles is part of the country’s ambitious goal to become carbon neutral by 2060. It wants one in every five new cars on its streets to be either purely electric, petrol-electric hybrid or fuel cell powered by 2025, according to a development plan for new energy vehicles from 2021 to 2035.

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