Tesla Gigafactory 3: land grading started at the site, Tesla reportedly secures loan to start building

A few days after announcing it secured a 210-acre piece of land for Gigafactory 3 in China, Tesla has reportedly also secured a loan to start building as land grading started at the site of the factory.

This is somewhat of a historic venture as Tesla is attempting to build the first auto factory in China that is wholly owned by a foreign automaker.

Earlier this summer, the company announced a deal with the Shanghai government to build a wholly owned local factory.

They have now accelerated their plans in response to the trade war between the US and China.

Last week, Tesla announced that it secured 210-acres of land for Gigafactory 3 in China and said that it is ‘on track’ with the accelerated construction plan.

Sure enough, a first look at the site shows that land grading has already started at the location:

https://youtu.be/GUPf_8Q3-zQ

In the video filmed last Friday, workers interviewed around the site said that the land was mostly used to grow watermelons and it was fenced in just over a month ago.

They poured some concrete and installed water and sewage pipes where there’s a tent.

We can also see that heavy machinery is already on site to grade the land.

Now reports in the Chinese media also state that Tesla managed to secure a loan with a local bank in order to finance the land and start construction.

At the last earnings meeting, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that local loans would be the company’s primary way to finance the new factory, which he expects will cost about $2 billion just to get it to the initial production volume of about 200,000 units per year.

Last month, Tesla raised the registered capital of its subsidiary for Gigafactory 3 in China to $680 million – seemingly in preparation to receive more capital to start building the facility.

The timeline for production remains unclear.

When first announcing the plant, Tesla said that it expects “construction to begin in the near future” and that it “will take roughly two years” until they start producing vehicles and “then another two to three years before the factory is fully ramped up to produce around 500,000 vehicles per year for Chinese customers.”