Tesla is about to buy land for its Gigafactory in China

The preparations for Teslas Gigafactory in China are apparently progressing. As Bloomberg reports, Tesla is about to buy land for the factory for 145 million US dollars. A decision by the Shanghai city government to allocate the land to Tesla could already be made this month.

According to the article, Tesla is the sole bidder for the land. However, neither the carmaker nor the Shanghai authorities are commenting on the subject. In July, Tesla signed a preliminary agreement to build the factory – known as Gigafactory 3 – near Shanghai, capable of producing 500,000 EVs locally and preventing the company to pay import duties as high as 40 percent.

The investment is likely to reach 5 billion dollars, whereby Tesla intends to raise a part of that sum from local partners, Bloomberg reports. In order to achieve a production output of 250,000 units per year, 2BN US dollars could be enough for the beginning, according to a statement that Tesla CEO Elon Musk made in early August. Production kick-off is scheduled for mid-2020, involving EVs as well as batteries.

Meanwhile, Musk also provides news about the Gigafactory 1 in the US state of Nevada: At a meeting with Brian Sandoval, the governor of Nevada, he revealed that around 7,000 people are currently working in the factory and that Tesla is planning to employ more than 20,000 people in the long term. That’s the reason why apartments are also to be built on the factory site.

bloomberg.com (Gigafactory 3), electrek.co, teslarati.com (both Gigafactory 1)