Tesla delivers its first batch of Chinese manufactured Model 3 cars

A couple of days back, Tesla announced that it had secured $1.29 billion (9 billion Yuan) from Chinese banks to assist with construction and production at its Shanghai "Gigafactory". Today, the firm delivered a batch of 15 Model 3s, marking a first for the American company"s Chinese manufactured automobiles at the factory. Tesla China announced via a tweet:

As stated in the tweet, the ceremony was held at Tesla"s multi-billion dollar "Gigafactory" in Shanghai. Impressively, the factory has started populating the delivery line in good time after initial plans for its construction were revealed last year, and construction work was completed within 10 months.

Tesla"s positioning in China represents Elon Musk"s strategy to secure a significant portion of the automobile industry in the country. This move comes after companies like Dell, Apple, HP, and Google instead started moving production out of China given the Sino-American trade war courtesy of the Entity List.

However, the firm plans on selling its Chinese manufactured cars within China itself. So far, all the automobiles sold in China had to be exported to the country from the United States, with the added expense courtesy of tariffs. But production and sale within China would do away with such charges and would also give Tesla a share in the world"s biggest car market.

Furthermore, Tesla is not restricting its expansion to Asia alone. Back in November, the firm also revealed its plans to expand into Germany and Europe with the construction of a production facility in the proximity of Berlin.

Tesla"s timely delivery of its first batch in China makes good on the company"s promise of starting deliveries before the Lunar New Year (25 January). Come next year, the company will be increasing production at the factory.

Source: Tesla China (Twitter) via BBC | Image: ABC