Tesla’s New Supercharger Factory Begins Production in Shanghai
Tesla announced on Wednesday that its supercharger manufacturing plant in Shanghai is now operational, less than six months after the project was launched in August last year.
“With the strong support of the Shanghai municipal governments and Tesla’s rapid efforts, Tesla’s Shanghai supercharger production plant is officially completed and put into operation. This signifies our industry-leading V3 Superchargers will start rolling off the plant assembly line,” Tesla said in a post on the official Weibo account of its charging team in China, sharing photos of the first supercharger station produced at the new factory.
With the newly-built plant, the U.S. electric carmaker hopes to accelerate the production of its third generation of quick chargers, known as the Supercharger V3 in China — the world’s biggest car market. Tesla said its V3 Supercharger supports a peak rate of up to 250 kilowatts and that typical charging time at a V3 Supercharger station will drop to around 15 minutes.
The 42-million-yuan ($6.5 million) factory will have the capacity to produce 10,000 superchargers per year, Tesla said. Previously, the Tesla chargers used in China were all imported from the United States.
The company built more than 410 supercharging stations in 2020, including 180 V3 Superchargers. Altogether there are more than 730 charging stations in China, covering more than 300 cities.
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Two weeks ago, Tesla delivered its first batch of Shanghai-made Model Y vehicles to customers in the country. The Model Y is the second vehicle to be produced and delivered to buyers from the Shanghai Gigafactory — the firm’s first plant outside the U.S. The company launched the production of the Model 3 sedan in late 2019, and deliveries started in December of the same year.
Tesla, which became the world’s most valuable carmaker last year, sold around 135,400 vehicles in China in 2020, according to Nikkei Asia citing the China Passenger Car Association.
Founder and CEO Elon Musk said during the company’s Q4 2020 earnings call last week that China continues to be a hotspot for Tesla’s vehicles.
“We currently are winning that — we are currently the leader in the Chinese EV market. So I think we’re mostly doing something right if we’re the best-selling electric car in China,” Musk said.
