Construction and operation of Tesla's gigafactory in Shangh

Photo taken on Nov. 20, 2020 shows the interior view of the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Ding Ting)

Despite the impact of COVID-19, the construction and operation of the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory maintains rapid progress in China and expects booming production in next year.

U.S. electric car company Tesla in 2019 built its first Gigafactory outside the United States in the new Lingang area, with a designed annual production capacity of 500,000 units. The Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory broke ground in early 2019 and delivered its first batch of made-in-China Model 3 sedans one year later.

The gigafactory is the first solely foreign-invested car plant after China's scrapping of caps on foreign ownership of new energy vehicle (NEV) ventures, according to Chen Yin, executive deputy mayor of Shanghai.

The Shanghai plant had churned out more than 85,000 vehicles with an industrial output of over 21.6 billion yuan (about 3.2 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of September, with the weekly production stabilizing at 3,500 to 4,000 vehicles. Exports of vehicles and batteries by the plant are estimated to reach 450 million U.S. dollars within the year, Chen said.

With the second-phase project of its gigafactory under construction, Tesla expects to start the mass production of made-in-China Model Y vehicles in the first half of 2021.