Tesla says Gigafactory 3 production is ready and waiting for govt approval

The Chinese government recently reportedly gave Tesla authorization to start Model 3 production at Gigafactory 3, but a Tesla executive has now said that production is ready and they are waiting for the green light from the government.
In recent weeks, we have been reporting on Tesla ramping up its efforts to start production soon at Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, China.

The start of production is going to be a major milestone since it’s going to be the first electric vehicle factory wholly-owned by a foreign automaker in China and Tesla’s second electric vehicle production factory.

After starting construction just in January earlier this year, Tesla has been guiding the start of production in Q4 2019 and recent reports indicate that the company is on schedule.

We reported last month that government officials and Tesla suppliers were saying that the automaker planned to start production on October 14.

Last week, the Chinese media reported that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology gave approval for Tesla to start production at the plant.

However, they now report that Tesla global vice president for China, Tao Lin, says that production is ready, but they are now waiting for government approval:

.@Tesla Shanghai factory is ready for production and sales will begin after being granted product certification and government approval, said Tesla global vice president Tao Lin. pic.twitter.com/HyFzIbqx7c

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) October 21, 2019

It’s unclear what exactly is the holdup at this point, but one thing is clear: activity has significantly picked up at Giafactory 3.

A new drone video shows a constant flow of trucks coming and leaving at the docks:

https://youtu.be/_FkSPJmZvJs

As seen in the video, Tesla has also christened the plant with its logo.

The automaker is expected to announce the official start of production any day now, but it’s clear that things are moving at the factory.

CEO Elon Musk has been guiding a rapid production ramp-up in phases starting with 3,000 vehicles per week by the end of the year, which would be an even more impressive ramp-up than the buildup of the factory.

Although, Chinese officials have been talking about 1,000 vehicles per week for 2019.

We expect clarification of the plan with the official start of production in the next week.