Tesla Continues to Climb; Defends China Presence

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By Michael Elkins

As Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) makes the climb towards its goal of manufacturing 20 million vehicles a year by 2030, the electric vehicle leader continues to expand its global presence.

The company recently opened factories in Berlin and Texas, on top of plants in Shanghai and California. And with China operations back in full swing after a production line upgrade, Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm felt the need to defend the companies continued focus on the country.

“We’re building factories around the world,” Denholm said on Wednesday. “Our view is the world is going to electric vehicles and to batteries that are lithium-ion based and we need to be in all of the major markets around the world.”

When Tesla first entered China in 2018, the country welcomed them with tax breaks, cheap loans, permission to wholly own its domestic operations and help constructing the Shanghai gigafactory with rapid speed. The warm welcome helped China become Tesla’s most important market outside of the U.S.

However, relations have become somewhat strained recently, with a series of high-profile safety incidents, protests by disgruntled customers, regulatory scrutiny and concern the cameras built into its cars could be used for spying.

“Markets around the world are really important and so having manufacturing capability on each of the continents is important,” Denholm said, when asked about Tesla being caught up in the strategic competition between the U.S. and China.

The EV maker went to great lengths to keep its Shanghai plant running during the city’s two-month lockdown, housing thousands of workers on-site -- sleeping on the factory floor and working 12-hour shifts, six days a week.

Tesla delivered 76,965 Chinese-made vehicles in August, just shy of June’s record 78,906. The Shanghai upgrade alone doubled the plant’s annual capacity to about 1 million units.

Shares of TSLA are up 1.60% in mid-day trading, Wednesday.