Tesla unveils design of Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, announces ambitious capacity

At the Model Y unveiling event last night, Tesla also unveiled the final design of Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai and CEO Elon Musk announced some ambitious capacity for the factory.

At first, Tesla’s Gigafactory effort was only meant to produce battery cells, but Musk eventually announced that he believes Tesla should integrate battery cell and full vehicle production into the same factory.

He eventually announced that all new gigafactory after Gigafactory 1 in Nevada would include the production of electric vehicles from battery cells to working vehicles.

When Tesla announced its plans for Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, it didn’t include battery cell production and it was believed to be due to the automaker’s accelerated plan to bring the factory online to avoid increasingly expensive import tariffs.

Now they are bringing  back the goal to produce everything at the same place.

At the Model Y launch event last night, Musk said:

“Things are moving fast. This will actually be, once complete, the equivalent of our Fremont factory plus our Nevada battery gigafactory combined. It’s integrating the two, which kind of make sense.”

Tesla plans to have a production capacity of over 500,000 car per year in Fremont and about 105 GWh of battery cells at full peak capacity

Tesla also released an image of the planned design of Gigafactory 3. Musk said that “this is what it will look like at the end of the year”:

About 6 months ago, Tesla announced a deal with the Shanghai government to build a wholly owned local factory and only about 4 months ago, they secured the 210-acres of land for Gigafactory 3 in China.

In a drone flyover update last month, we saw that they were preparing the foundation,  but they still had a long way to go:

Musk said that he was excited about the opportunity to bring the factory online:

“We are excited about this. We have a great team in China and this will be important for affordable versions of Model 3 and Model Y for the greater China market.”

Tesla aims to release its first cars produced by Gigafactory 3  in China.