Tesla Expands Shanghai Gigafactory to Increase Export Capacity

According to an environmental information disclosure platform for enterprises and institutions in Shanghai, Tesla published the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the first phase of the Tesla Gigafactory Project on Tuesday. The firm pointed out in the report that the project is mainly geared at meeting export demand and to improve the production capacity of auto parts. It plans to increase capacity by adding production workshops, workers and production volume.

The report disclosed that the production process improvement project will add five major components, including the construction of a new power system workshop for assembly and production. It will adjust the motor workshop, add new lines, and improve the production capacity of permanent magnet motors and motor controllers. The battery maintenance part in the original workshop will be moved to the newly-built power system workshop and the annual maintenance volume will be increased. Meanwhile, the motor maintenance part will be moved to the original motor workshop, and the annual maintenance amount will remain unchanged.

In the report, Tesla has hidden the key information such as the total investment, area, construction period and capacity improvement scale of the project. In the conclusion, the company in charge of environmental impact assessment (EIA) thinks that the construction of the project is feasible from the perspective of environmental protection.

According to the Beijing News, the parts production process upgrading project at Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory began in March 2020. Tesla revealed that the project was built to fulfill its commitment to localization with the Chinese government. It could also shorten the time caused by the importing of parts from the United States. Considering the global resource allocation, the company switched the supply chain from American factories to Chinese factories.

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At that time, Tesla disclosed in its EIA report that it planned to add production processes such as power batteries and electric drive assemblies to the existing plant of the Shanghai Gigafactory to manufacture key components of new energy vehicles. The annual output was planned to be 260,000 sets of pure electric vehicle power battery packs, electric vehicle drive motor systems and motor controllers. The first phase of the above-mentioned project was completed and commissioned in early September last year, and the firm is expected to complete the acceptance work by the end of February this year.

According to statistics of the China Passenger Car Association, the Shanghai Gigafactory exported 40,499 vehicles in January this year and more than 160,000 electric vehicles in 2021. It was positioned as the main global export center by Tesla.