Tesla to Build First Foreign Factory in this Country

Tesla revealed big news this week. The electric vehicle maker will be building its very first foreign factory in Shanghai, China.

The news was revealed at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday.

The company’s head of worldwide sales, Robin Ren, announced Tesla’s plans to build its first factory outside of the U.S. in Shanghai at the meeting.

By building a factory in China, it could help the company avoid import tariffs there.

It was not too long ago that China had said it would let foreign electric vehicle makers to fully own auto-factories there.

The company also announced that it plans to make available a $35,000 version of its Model 3 by the end of this year.

“We’ve made a lot of mistakes with Model 3 production,” said CEO Elon Musk. “We’re confident we know how to address them. We are addressing them.”

Musk also talked about past challenges the company has faced and said, “We’ve made a lot of mistakes with Model 3 production. We’re confident we know how to address them, we are addressing them…The approach to automation that we’ve taken in some cases has worked in some cases has not. But it’s clear that there are some elements of production which are really well-suited to people doing it, and some parts really well suited to robotics…It sort of makes sense to start off with an initial production line that has a bias towards people, then automate parts of the production system that are most painful and difficult for people to do.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) and have not been compensated for this article.