Tesla is expanding its business in China with a new factory, planned for Shanghai, where the company will produce its Megapack battery.
The construction of the facility is scheduled to start in the third quarter of this year and plans are to have it completed by the second quarter of 2024 when production is slated to begin, the Financial Times reported.
Per plans, the new facility should produce some 10,000 Megapacks annually, with a total capacity equivalent to 40 GWh, per the FT. The batteries produced in Shanghai will be sold globally, Tesla said.
China accounts for about a quarter of Tesla's revenues and Shanghai is already home to a Tesla car factory. In February, the factory rolled out close to 90,000 cars.
China also has a much better-developed EV battery supply chain than any other part of the world, which must have had a lot to do with the decision to choose a Chinese location for the new production facility. The country also sports lower production costs than alternatives.
Separately, Tesla recently made headlines for a much less flattering reason. Company employees were revealed to have violated privacy rules by accessing footage recorded by car cameras.
Reuters reported last week that a group of employees had been sharing video and images from Tesla cameras in a private online group, including sensitive content such as accidents involving Teslas.
Unsurprisingly, the revelations made by Reuters have already prompted legal action. At the end of last week, one Tesla owner from California filed a lawsuit against the company that could grow into class action litigation.
The plaintiff, Henry Yeh from San Francisco, alleged that Tesla employees had violated customers' privacy for "tasteless and tortuous entertainment" and "the humiliation of those surreptitiously recorded," according to Reuters.
"Like anyone would be, Mr Yeh was outraged at the idea that Tesla's cameras can be used to violate his family's privacy, which the California Constitution scrupulously protects," the plaintiff's lawyer told Reuters.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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