Just last week, a drone video showed that the parking lot of Gigafactory 3, located in Shanghai, started filling with the new Tesla Model 3 cars. It was followed by a tweet from Tesla China earlier today, which mentioned that the first China-made Tesla Model 3 would be delivered to customers today itself.
Well, the company acted well on its promise and delivered the first fifteen Model 3 electric cars. Interestingly, all fifteen customers are Tesla employees. One of these employees also proposed to his girlfriend after receiving the new car.
It’s worth noting that Tesla China has managed to build the $2 billion factory from scratch and deliver the first vehicle in less than a year — 357 days to be exact. The factory was already producing cars on a trial basis by October.
What a touching moment. pic.twitter.com/DlQn4wyW1j
— Tesla Greater China (@teslacn) December 30, 2019
What’s next for Tesla?
In the near future, the company aims to push the production to about 1,000 cars a week, resulting in more than 50,000 electric vehicles a year. If you don’t count the subsidies offered to the car owners, the Chinese Tesla Model 3 vehicles are priced at 355,800 Yuan or $50,000.
The Shanghai-located factory is the world’s third Gigafactory and the first one located outside the US. Before this, Telsa has been producing its vehicles in Nevada and Buffalo gigafactories.
Talking about the future, Gigafactory 4 will be up and running by 2021 in Berlin. Construction work for the same is expected to start in January 2020.
In a related development, on Thursday, Tesla also confirmed via an SEC filing that it has grabbed about $1.3 billion loan to take care of the factory.
Also Read: Watch: Tesla Model 3 Burnout With A Dodge Challenger Hellcat
