It was party time yesterday at the Tesla factory in Shanghai, China, as employees gathered for an official photo around the two-millionth Tesla vehicle produced there.
The plant assembles Model 3 sedans and Model Y SUVs. When it opened its doors on January 7, 2019, only the sedan was built there, but the SUV joined it at the end of 2020.
In August 2022, the number of models manufactured passed the one million mark. This means that it will have taken 33 months to produce the first million vehicles, but only 13 months to reach two million.
It’s estimated that to date, Tesla has produced around five million models in all - which shows just how important the Shanghai factory has become to the company.
As reported by Insideevs, Tesla's Shanghai plant is the world's largest production site for all-electric cars, with an estimated capacity of over one million units per year. Tesla conservatively describes the factory's capacity as over 750,000 units annually, but the data shows that it's much more; 935,000 models have been sold locally or exported in the last 12 months.
The plant currently produces two Model Ys for every Model 3. It initially focused on serving the local market, before becoming Tesla's export centre. Even Canada is one of the markets supported by this plan.
At the end of July, exports exceeded 215,000 units, while domestic Chinese sales amounted to 325,000 units. It's possible that exports will continue to grow and catch up with domestic sales before too long.