Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm is in Shanghai this week to attend the 2019 China International Import Expo (CIIE). She will be in Asia from November 5 to November 10 for the event. Denholm shared some information about Tesla’s goals during the first day of the event.
During the first day of the 2019 CIIE, Denholm shared some information about the number of workers Tesla employs in China and all of the world, stated Reuters. According to Tesla’s Chairwoman, the company has 42,000 employees worldwide; 3,200 of those workers make up the staff in China.
Another Tesla executive, Jerome Guillen—President of Automotive—also talked about the company’s employees recently. In a LinkedIn post, Guillen applauded Tesla China’s team for their hard work and invited more people to apply to the all-electric car maker. He focused on the open position for battery engineers at Tesla, which may have to do with the company’s goal of producing its own batteries or Giga 3’s battery facility.
Denholm stayed mum about the batteries for the China-made Model 3’s at the expo. However, Tesla does seem to have a temporary battery plan in motion since Model 3 cars are being built at Giga 3 already, and they seem to be fully operational.
Denholm also stressed the importance of working with Shanghai’s local government to reach Tesla Global’s year-end goal, reported Bloomberg.
“We’re working with the local government to get our manufacturing certification, which we hope we will be able to get by the end of the year,” she said.
Gigafactory 3 has already received the certification it needs in China to start trial production. The manufacturing certification is the next step for Tesla’s Shanghai factory.
Meant to say annualized production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2019
Gigafactory 3 can start working on Elon Musk’s year-end goal after it receives the manufacturing license. In February, Musk stated Tesla would have an annualized run-rate of 500K per year vehicles by the end of 2019, or about 10,000 electric cars a week.
Currently, Tesla is producing more than 7,000 US-made cars a week. Before Denholm’s visit to Shanghai, Tesla Global VP Grace Tao announced that Giga 3 is expected to produce 3,000 vehicles a week as soon as it received the final certification it needs for Model 3 production. So the Shanghai Factory may help Tesla meet Elon Musk’s year-end goals for the company.
Denholm also reaffirmed that trial production runs for the Model 3 have already started at Giga 3. There have been sightings of more than 20 Model 3 units parked in the GF3 lot, some of which seemed like they were already being tested on the test track.
Tesla China already released a delivery announcement for customers who reserved a Model 3 in advance. In it, Tesla states China-made models can be expected by Q1 2020. If Tesla does receive its manufacturing certification before the end of the year, it will be on track for Model 3 deliveries in Q1 2020.
