The city of Shenyang will lay the groundwork for major NEV projects, including Tesla's, an official WeChat account for Liaoning province said in an article Saturday.
(Screenshot of Tesla video shows Giga Shanghai)
Tesla's current factory in China is located in the eastern city of Shanghai, and now a new government release indicates that the electric vehicle maker may build a new factory in Shenyang, in northeast China's Liaoning province.
Shenyang's Dandong District will push ahead with urban renewal to provide more space for local industrial development and "lay the groundwork for major new energy vehicle (NEV) projects, including Tesla's, to land," according to an article posted Saturday by Liaoning's official WeChat account.
The main content of the article was about several measures to be taken by Dandong District in Shenyang to boost local development, without mentioning more information about Tesla, although it mentioned that the district would seize the development opportunities of NEVs and intelligent network-connected vehicles to build a complete ecosystem of the automotive industry chain.
Last November, there were rumors that Tesla would build its second Gigafactory in China in Qingdao, a city in eastern China's Shandong province, but this was denied.
"We have recently received many media inquiries about a second factory (for Tesla in China) and I am sorry that I cannot respond to all of them. The current information on the internet about the location of Tesla's second factory is not true, and we thank all those who care and support Tesla's development," Grace Tao, Tesla's vice president of external affairs, said on Weibo at the time.
Tesla is proud to contribute to the development of China's new energy industry and will continue to firmly increase its investment in China, Tao said.
Tesla's Shanghai plant had a capacity of 450,000 units last year and will see a huge increase in capacity after April this year, local media Cailian reported earlier this month, citing people familiar with the matter.
After the latest expansion project is completed, Giga Shanghai's annual production capacity is expected to top 1 million units in the next few years, the person familiar with the matter said.
In 2021, Tesla sold 169,853 Model Ys in China, and 150,890 Model 3s, according to the China Passenger Car Association.
Tesla's revenue in China reached $13.844 billion in 2021, up 107.8 percent year-on-year, according to the company's 10-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last week.
China is now Tesla's largest market outside the United States, accounting for 25.7 percent of the company's revenue.
The US remains Tesla's top market, with the company's revenue from the US market reaching $23.973 billion in 2021, accounting for 44.55 percent of total revenue.
