Tesla injects US$187 million to expand Shanghai Gigafactory

Electric vehicle company Tesla has injected 1.2 billion yuan (US$187.4 million) to expand its Shanghai Gigafactory, due to be completed in April 2022, according to information released by Shanghai Bureau of Environment Protection.

The expansion will result in an additional 4,000 staff members, taking total employees at the factory to 19,000.

The factory's increased output has not been released but the expansion is a response to market demand and was necessitated by the strategic role of the factory.

Tesla repositioned the facility earlier this year as its main automobile export center, not only to meet the demands of Chinese consumers but also for exports to the whole Asia Pacific region and Europe.

So far the output of the Gigafactory has exceeded 450,000 automobiles. Its third-quarter sales in China increased 78.5 percent on the same period of last year to 3.13 billion.

It was Shanghai's largest foreign manufacturing project in 2019 and its planned production capacity is 500,000 electric vehicles.