Musk met with China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology and Minister of Commerce today. He met with China's foreign minister after arriving in Beijing yesterday and was seen meeting with CATL's chairman.
(Image credit: CnEVPost)
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk began the second day of his visit to China today, meeting with more local officials.
On May 31, Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) Minister Jin Zhuanglong met with Musk in Beijing, where they exchanged views on topics including the development of new energy vehicles (NEVs) and smart connected vehicles, according to an announcement from the MIIT.
The MIIT is China's industrial regulator, overseeing areas including the automotive industry.
Musk then visited China's Ministry of Commerce and met with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.
(On May 31, Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao met with Musk. Image from Ministry of Commerce website.)
Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on its private jet, and was later met by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang.
Tesla opposes decoupling as well as supply chain disconnection and is willing to continue to expand its business in China and share in China's development opportunities, Musk said, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry yesterday.
In addition to the meeting with Chinese officials, Musk was seen yesterday meeting with Robin Zeng, chairman of CATL, the world's largest power battery maker.
A picture circulating on Chinese social networks showed Musk and Zeng together in the lobby of a hotel.
Neither Tesla nor CATL made an announcement about the meeting. Local media outlet The Paper cited industry sources as saying the talks could include cell supply for Tesla's Megafactory in Shanghai, future cooperation on a battery plant in North America and power cell supply.
Tesla signed a contract with Shanghai's Lingang authorities on April 9 to build a new Megafactory in the area, which will be dedicated to the production of Tesla's energy storage product Megapack.
The Megafactory will be Tesla's first energy storage system factory outside of the US home market, with an initial planned annual production capacity of up to 10,000 commercial energy storage batteries and an energy storage scale of nearly 40 GWh, with products to be supplied to the global market.
The plant is scheduled to start construction in the third quarter of this year and go into operation in the second quarter of 2024, according to an announcement by the Lingang special area administration.
Tesla's vehicle assembly plant in Shanghai is located in the Lingang area, which began operations in late 2019 and has now become Tesla's largest EV production site in the world.
Tesla sold 75,842 China-made vehicles in April, including 39,956 delivered in China and 35,886 exported, according to data released earlier in the month by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang meets with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Beijing
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