Tesla has started building a battery manufacturing plant in China, suggesting that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk does not give a damn about what the US government and Joe Biden decide about the ongoing bilateral trade disputes between the two biggest economies in the world.
Weeks after Elon Musk’s surprise visit to China, where he met with high-ranking authorities and deliberated on topics of shared business interest, the building is underway in Shanghai.
At the groundbreaking on Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that the US is levying $18 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports, of which 100% are electric vehicles (EVs), a product that Tesla creator Elon Musk opposes.
Musk said to VivaTech 2024, “Neither Tesla nor I asked for these tariffs; in fact, I was surprised when they were announced.”
According to a statement from Lingang Group, which CNN cited, the new factory is scheduled to start production in the first quarter of 2025. It will produce 10,000 Megapacks of batteries, which have the capacity to store enormous amounts of electricity annually.
The facility is being built next to Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory, the company’s largest unit outside of its native Austin.
The Chinese housing developer claims that the Megapacks have an average energy storage capacity of 3,600 households’ worth of electricity for an hour.
Tesla senior vice president Tom Zhu was quoted as stating, “For Tesla, it’s an important milestone” in a story that appeared on the Shanghai government website on Friday.
At the beginning ceremony on Thursday, Wu Xiaohua, a representative of the Shanghai government, stated that the city would help Tesla complete the building and “put the factory into operation as soon as this year.”
During his April visit, 52-year-old Musk met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who hailed Tesla as a “successful model” for US-China cooperation.
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