Tesla had a record-breaking year in 2021 as far as car production by assembling no fewer than 930,422 units. This year it should be even better considering the new Berlin plant will be fully operational in the coming weeks while the facility in Texas is going to follow suit. Both have been tasked to put together the hugely successful Model Y crossover, which should easily allow Tesla to make over one million cars by the end of the year.
The company isn’t stopping there as Reuters reports yet another factory will be built. According to the news agency, the existing Shanghai facility will be expanded to include another plant. As a matter of fact, construction work in Lingang, Pudong New Area could commence in March. If the two people familiar with the plan cited by Reuters are telling the truth, the new factory would enable an annual production output in China alone of two million vehicles.
It’s worth mentioning Tesla needed less than a year to kick off production at the existing Shanghai plant from the moment work started on the plant. That could mean the alleged second factory might be operational as early as March 2023. As to which model will be produced there, details are not available at this point, but the existing facility puts together the Model 3 and Model Y.
Meanwhile, the current factory is being upgraded to hike production beyond one million units this year provided the company has access to all the necessary parts. The immediate goal for the Shanghai factory is to boost production to approximately 22,000 cars per week in the following months.
That would take total annual capacity to around 1.1 million or more than double the original goal set by Tesla. However, none of these details have been confirmed yet by the EV manufacturer, nor by officials of the city government.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows for Elon Musk and his company since the Cybertruck has been pushed back yet again, much like the Roadster and the Semi.
Source: Reuters (subscription required)
