Premium electric vehicle (EV) maker Tesla officially launched the Model Y program at its Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, the company’s CEO Elon Musk announced in Shanghai today, local tech media 36Kr reported.
The EV maker has also started its first customer deliveries of China-made Model 3 today, with CEO Elon Musk presenting at the delivery event in Shanghai.
First unveiled in March 2019, Model Y has become Tesla’s fifth car to hit the road. According to Tesla China’s website, Model Y currently has three versions, with an estimated price starting from RMB 444,000 (USD 64,048).
Pre-orders of Model Y are currently available online. Tesla said on its website that the production of Model Y targeting the Chinese market will commence in early 2021.
Tesla started to build the new Shanghai factory, dubbed Gigafactory 3, in January 2019. As Tesla’s first plant outside of the US, it is targeting an annual capacity of 500,000 cars. The new facility was built and running in a record ten months.
The first batch of Shanghai-made Model 3 was already handed to Tesla’s employees in December. The EV maker said in a recent statement that the Gigafactory 3 has started producing Model 3 at a run-rate of 3,000 vehicles per week.
As the world’s largest market for electric vehicles, China has become the second-largest market for Tesla, following the US. The California-based automaker earned USD 2.1 billion in revenue in the first nine months of this year in China, up 48% year-on-year, it said in a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
36Kr is KrASIA’s parent company.