Tesla plans to build megafactory in Shanghai

It will be dedicated to manufacturing the company’s energy storage product Megapack

Tesla Model 3 vehicles at a factory in Shanghai. Tesla produces its vehicles in California, Texas, Shanghai and Berlin. Reuters

Tesla, the world’s biggest electric vehicle manufacturer, will build a new megafactory in Shanghai as it looks to cater to growing demand for battery production.

The factory will be dedicated to manufacturing the company’s energy storage product Megapack, the company said on Twitter on Sunday.

It will complement a huge existing Shanghai plant making electric vehicles.

Tesla is scheduled to break ground on the plant in the third quarter of this year and start production in the second quarter of 2024, according to a report by Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

The new factory will initially produce 10,000 Megapack units every year, equal to about 40 gigawatt hours of energy storage.

The products will be sold worldwide, the Xinhua report said.

Investment details about the project were not disclosed.

Megapack is a powerful battery that provides energy storage and support, helping to stabilise the grid and prevent power cuts, according to Tesla's website.

Each unit can store more than 3 megawatt hours of energy — that’s enough energy to power an average of 3,600 homes for one hour.

Tesla currently produces its vehicles in Fremont, California; Austin, Texas; Shanghai, China; and Berlin, Germany.

Last month, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tesla would build a new plant in the city of Monterrey.

The Nasdaq-listed company has also invested $3.6 billion to produce its “first high-volume Semi [heavy-duty truck] factory” in Reno, Nevada.

Meanwhile, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo said his administration has also been in talks with Tesla about a factory.

Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk has set a goal of selling 20 million electric vehicles annually by 2030.

The Texas-headquartered company set a record for annual deliveries as it shipped 1.31 million cars last year, up more than 40 per cent year-on-year.

Tesla gigafactory in Germany — in pictures

Deliveries for the three-month period ended on December 31 were up by about a third to 405,278, from 308,600 a year earlier, and about 18 per cent higher from 180,570 in the third quarter.

Tesla aims to produce about 1.8 million cars, marking a growth rate of more than 50 per cent this year.

The world's top car makers are planning to spend nearly $1.2 trillion through 2030 to develop and produce millions of electric vehicles, along with the batteries and raw materials to support that production, according to a Reuters analysis of public data and projections released by those companies last October.

Car makers have forecast plans to build 54 million battery electric vehicles by 2030, representing more than 50 per cent of total vehicle production, according to the analysis.

To support that unprecedented level of EVs, car makers and their battery partners are planning to install 5.8 terawatt-hours of battery production capacity by 2030, according to data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and the manufacturers.

Tesla has a factory in Lathrop, California, capable of manufacturing 10,000 Megapack units per year, Reuters reported.