It wasn’t that long ago that the site for Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai was nothing more than a mud field – something which naysayers loved to point out as part of the fraud Tesla CEO Elon Musk neck-deep in. Now less than a year later, with videos of the new Gigafactory have shown parking lots full of made-in-China Model 3’s, the first deliveries to customers is expected to begin next week.
According to a report from Reuters, citing a Tesla representative, Tesla China will be begin delivering Model 3’s to customers on Monday, December 30, 2019. According to the source, the first 15 deliveries on Monday will be Tesla China employees who have placed orders.
If the report is accurate, that would beat out even the estimates from Tesla themselves, who had initially said deliveries would begin in Q1 2020. Initial plans for the Gigafactory call for it to produce up to 250,000 vehicles a year after the production line for the new Model Y is added next year.
Even with China’s automotive sector struggling, Tesla is hoping to take advantage of China being the largest EV market in the world, by selling the Model 3 with local incentives.
