Year-ender: 10 highlights in China's foreign investment

Tesla's $7b Shanghai plant begins trial production

Tesla Shanghai gigafactory, the largest foreign-invested manufacturing project in Shanghai, broke ground in Shanghai’s Lingang area in January this year.

The gigafactory, with a total investment of 50 billion yuan ($7.25 billion), will have a production capacity of 500,000 units in two to three years. The first phase of the factory, with an initial investment of 16 billion yuan, aims at an annual production of 250,000 units of Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles.

Tesla said the Shanghai gigafactory is already producing full vehicles on a trial basis ahead of schedule, from body and paint to general assembly. The factory is said to be 65 percent cheaper to build than the Model 3 production facility in the United States.