Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted that his company could build more factories in China, as construction work continues on its factory in Shanghai, in a Bloomberg report carried by China Plus.
“China is pretty big geographically, so it may make sense to have factories in other parts of China in order to reduce logistics costs,” said Musk at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in Mountain View, California. “The faster you scale, the more cash you have.”
But the entrepreneur-investor said the company wouldn’t be rushing any future expansion, the report said. “We can’t spend money too fast, you know, we’ll run out of it,” said Musk.
China is Tesla’s second-largest market after the United States. The company earlier announced its goal to produce half a million cars a year at its Shanghai plant, which Musk told investors was an interim target. He said capacity could top 1 million cars in the long term.
With an investment of over 50 billion yuan (US$7 billion), Tesla’s factory is the largest foreign investment project in Shanghai’s manufacturing sector, the report said. Last month, the company started taking orders for the second-generation Model 3 that will be built in Shanghai.
According to The Verge, Tesla recorded a total revenue of $US21.4 billion — a company record — though it still posted a $1 billion loss across the year. Tesla remains short of Musk’s ultimate goal of generating a full-year profit, but it finished the year with US$3.7 billion in cash.
Musk and CFO Deepak Ahuja told shareholders that 2018 was the “mot pivotal year in Tesla’s history.”