Tesla rejects reports on Qingdao as site of its second China EV plant, pledges to boost investment in booming market

Name: Tesla exports first China-made cars to Europe with shipment of 7,000 Model 3 electric sedans
Uploaded: 2021-11-04T07:19:48.000Z
Duration: 1 min 16 s
Description: Tesla exports first China-made cars to Europe with shipment of 7,000 Model 3 electric sedans

The information circulating on the internet about the location is not true, Tesla China’s head of communications says on her Weibo account

Tesla pledges to step up investment in sustainable manner, starts offering financing to car buyers amid a surge in demand

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Tesla China-made Model 3 vehicles are seen during a delivery event at its factory in Shanghai on January 7, 2020. Photo Reuters

Daniel Renin Shanghai

Published: 3:19pm, 4 Nov 2021Updated: 4:04pm, 4 Nov 2021

Tesla has denied reports that its second Chinese electric-vehicle (EV) factory would be located in Qingdao amid rife speculations about its plan to step up production to capture a bigger slice of the booming local market.

“The information circulating on the internet about the location is not true,” Grace Tao, Tesla China’s head of communications and government affairs, said on her microblogging site Weibo on Wednesday evening. The US carmaker helmed by billionaire Elon Musk would continue to invest in China in a sustainable manner, she added.

The carmaker was responding to rumours that it has decided to build its second factory in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, home to the nation’s fifth-largest port and better known for its Tsingtao beer. Tao did not disclose the real location.

Tesla spent more than US$2 billion to build its Gigafactory 3 plant in the Lingang free-trade zone outside Shanghai in 2019. The California-based EV maker is the only foreign automotive company with a wholly-owned assembly plant in mainland China.

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Tesla exports first China-made cars to Europe with shipment of 7,000 Model 3 electric sedans

The company, a front-runner in the mainland’s premium EV segment, started building the Model 3 sedans in December 2019 and launched the locally produced Model Y SUV in January this year.

“In the long term, Tesla is set to expand its production capacity in China because of rising demand,” said David Zhang, a researcher for the automotive industry at the North China University of Technology. “It will take some time for the company to make the final decision on how to enforce the plan.”