Tesla purchases 210 acres in Shanghai with plans to build Gigafactory 3

A few months ago, Tesla confirmed reports that the company was looking to establish a factory in Shanghai to better serve the Chinese market. On Oct. 17, Tesla announced it had secured the rights to a 210-acre piece of land in Lingang, Shanghai on which it will build Gigafactory 3.

The electric car company plans to build Gigafactory 3 on an accelerated construction schedule in order to get the factory up and running as quickly as possible in the face of new tariffs. Between import tariffs and ocean transport costs, Tesla is operating at a 55% to 60% cost disadvantage compared to the same car produced locally in China.

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Construction is expected to begin in the near future and take about two years, and $2 billion, before the factory can produce vehicles. It will take another two or three years from that point before the factory is at full power, which will allow it to produce about 500,000 vehicles per year.

Gigafactory 3 will be the first Gigafactory outside of the United States. Gigafactory 1 is located at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center in Nevada. Gigafactory 2 is located in Buffalo, N.Y.