American electric vehicle giant Tesla, Elon Musk, visited Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory in the early hours of Thursday (June 1). Musk is expected to unveil the facelifted and updated Model 3, people familiar with the matter said.
Based on reports from Reuters and The Paper, Tao Lin, Tesla’s global vice president, uploaded two group photos of Musk and his employees on Weibo at midnight on Thursday, with the text “Thank you for all your support! Enjoy your day! ”, the location is Tesla’s Shanghai Super Factory, which means Musk has visited the electric car maker’s largest production base again after three years.
Musk landed at Beijing Capital International Airport in a private business jet on Tuesday afternoon (May 30), beginning his 10th trip to China. He met with Chinese officials in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday, including Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, Industry and Information Technology Minister Jin Zhuanglong and others. After finishing his visit to Beijing, Musk flew from Beijing to Shanghai Hongqiao Airport in a private jet at 9:00 pm on Wednesday.
According to flight tracking provider Variflight, Musk’s private jet is scheduled to leave Shanghai on Thursday morning for Austin, Texas.
Reuters quoted people familiar with the matter as saying Musk’s visit to Shanghai would unveil the new Model 3. The Model 3 is Tesla’s first mass-produced vehicle for the mass market, and it’s been seven years since its launch. Many analysts believe that the Model 3 is gradually losing its competitiveness in the highly competitive electric vehicle market. Therefore, Musk hopes that by improving and upgrading the Model 3, this model will be able to compete more effectively with Chinese competitors.
According to a Bloomberg report on May 16, Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory is making final preparations for the trial run of the redesigned Model 3. Tesla has applied to Chinese regulators to expand its factory in Shanghai in preparation for mass production of the revamped Model 3. However, due to the saturation of China’s electric vehicle market, the Chinese government’s approval for expanding electric vehicle production capacity has become conservative.
This article is reproduced with the permission of Lianhe Zaobao
