Elon Musk delivers first Chinese Model 3’s, and announces Tesla will open a design and engineering centre in China

In what was a surprise announcement this morning at Gigafactory Shanghai, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the automaker has plans to open a design and engineering centre in China.

Musk was in China for the first public Model 3 deliveries, and made the announcement while addressing media and Tesla employees. He stated that Tesla wants to increase investment in China by hiring a team of designers and engineers to create a new, original, electric vehicle. He likened it to designing something like the Cybertruck, something which was “radical”, and that “nobody was expecting.”

“I think something that would be super cool would be to – and so we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna try to do it – would be to create a China design and engineering center to actually design an original car in China for worldwide consumption. I think this will be very exciting. I think China has some of the best art in the world and I think it’s something that would be appreciated on a worldwide basis. I think it should be done, and we’re gonna do it.”

But the event was setup to make the first deliveries of made-in-China Model 3’s to customers, after delivering the first vehicles last week to Tesla employees. After the comments, Musk was on stage to help hand over the ‘keys’ to 10 lucky owners.

Something else nobody was expecting was to see a demonstration of Musk’s killer dance moves, which he put on display for all.

You can watch the full event from this livestream recording.