Tesla’s upgrades to the Shanghai plant where it builds Model 3s and Model Ys for the Australian market are completed, with output set to scale up.
That’s according to a new report from Reuters, citing a statement on a Shanghai government platform for companies’ environmental information disclosures.
That could be good news for buyers on the wait list for Australia’s two top-selling EVs (by a big margin), which are currently subject to advised wait times of between five and nine months.
According to the report, Tesla will test the upgraded lines until November 30.
It’s understood the company’s goal from there is to ramp output to about 22,000 cars per week.
As reported last year by Beijing Daily, the company is believed to have spent around $260 million (￥1.2 billion) on the updates.
Tesla has not commented, but its Q2 investor deck said “recent equipment upgrades will enable us to continue to increase our production rate further”.
We’re expecting a big sales spike for Tesla in Australia across the second half of 2022.
Tesla Inc. Chair Robyn Denholm, an Australian who once worked at Telstra, recently said she “wouldn’t be surprised” if the number of Teslas on local roads doubled by the end of this year.
Ms Denholm reportedly told the Clean Energy Summit in Sydney in July that “we now have more than 26,500 Teslas on Australian roads, and the momentum is there”.
“I personally wouldn’t be surprised if we double that number by the end of the year,” Ms Denholm claimed.
Doubling its existing fleet by year’s end would be remarkable, given it delivered less than 5000 cars in the first half of 2022 due to plant showdowns during the updates.
However it delivered a further 3397 cars to Australians in August and demand remains hot – August being the launch month of the Model Y here.
Shanghai already has highest claimed installed annual capacity of any Tesla plant, said to be capable of making north of 750,000 cars a year – compared to 650,000 in California and about 250,000 each for Berlin and Texas.
Based on Reuters‘ revised (claimed) target figure of 22,000 units produced per week, this suggests Giga Shanghai could scale to around 1.1 million units annually.
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