I’d have to chase down various posts, but I thought the info was pretty reliable. A while ago Tesla stated they wanted to expand their Shanghai footprint, but nothings come of it.
My suspicion from watching what has actually been happening is as follows (the Shanghai watchers can doubtless fill in the details) which has elements of both strategic and tactical decision making:
- Tesla dumped lots of earth on the land nearby the existing Shanghai factory, so as to preload the land in readiness for the construction of the next factory. Since Tesla Shanghai are already (by now, not then) doing 1m/yr the tentative conclusion is that the next chunk would be sized for another 1m/yr (whether one calls this a new factory or an expansion of the existing one does not matter hugely). That took place a couple of years ago and the land ought to be preloaded by now, sufficient that they could have started construction by now;
- Tesla was also wandering around China kicking the tyres on other locations for the next factory site, so as to keep everyone guessing and honest (whether this was a for-real exercise, or a Potemkin looksee is unclear);
- Tesla cell suppliers in China brought to market additional LFP capacity that enabled the existing Shanghai factory to reach capacity, and those cell suppliers continued to ramp;
- The 4680 cell ramp ran late and was in any case re-focussed towards Austin leaving Berlin with the possibility of a cell gap;
- So excess and core LFP was diverted from Shanghai towards Berlin, which meant that Shanghai was actually hobled in reaching full plateau production rate by a quarter or so. One has to look at the detail in the quarterly and monthly production rates to form this tentative conclusion (see below, and note that Fremont use of China packs has been likely fairly stable in this period*);
- But in the meantime the political winds inside of China (i.e. squeals from local BEV manufacturers that Tesla is obliterating them); and the rising political tension between China and USA (and wider West); and the related rise in US-protectionism (i.e. US-IRA acts etc) caused Tesla to think it wise not to put too many eggs in the China basket at this time, and therefore the decision was to delay the next China factory/expansion;
- And instead the decision was taken by Tesla to pull forwards the Mexico option so as to get a plant that was inside NAFTA (so fairly robust in specific US-IRA terms and more general nearshoring/friendshoring terms), cheap labour, easier coordination, and opens up the wider LatAm/Mercosur/AndeanPact markets;
- And the latest part of this 2-3 year evolving situation is that Tesla has likely reached near-plateau in Shanghai and has kept the lines full through pricing games, and can now assuage Beijing concerns over rapacious foreign capitalists eating the local pseudo-capitalist-statist lunch;
- and all along that cell supply constraint was real which is why the design of the model 2/Z platform has been delayed and delayed, meaning we are unsure what really the China design office has actually been doing for the bulk of their workload for the last few years;
- and that 2/Z will likely only really come to fruition in (say ??) 2025 when Mexico (Monterrey) starts production (insert your Elon time modifier of choice) .... and by then I strongly suspect the decision will also have been taken to make use of that land for the Shanghai expansion .... provided that in the meantime US-China relations have become somewhat steadier (note that the decision on this can possibly be delayed until after a US-election cycle so as to take any wildness into account, and by then Ukraine should have stabilised and the outcome of that - one way or the other - will mean that China is either risk-on or risk-off in rules-based-global-order terms).
- and note that 4680 technology has not been sent lock stock and barrel to China, yet.
That's just my 2c on watching the pattern.
*
financialpost.com
) home to Phuket with overnight stops in seaside Hua Hin and beautiful Krabi. With 623 kilometers of range, we'll likely make three charging stops on the 833 kilometer road trip.
