It was registered to China’s National Enterprise Information Publicity System in Shanghai with a registered capital of $1 million.
According to the filing, the new division’s scope includes “architectural design, construction and building materials” and it registered Zhu Xiaotong, Tesla’s head in China, as the new company’s legal representative.
Nothing else is known about Tesla’s new construction unit, but this new registration would be required for them to handle construction work in the country.
Of course, we know that Tesla is currently building a large factory in Shanghai where it plans to produce Model 3.
Gigafactory 3’s main building is already completed and Tesla has been working with contractors, but we reported yesterday that Tesla has been expanding on Gigafactory 3’s land with new buildings.
The automaker did something similar with the buildout of Gigafactory 1 in Nevada and started acquiring its own construction talent instead of only hiring contractors.
Tesla always made it clear that it is going to need many gigafactories in order to support its ambitions to produce millions of electric vehicles per year by the end of the next decade.
The automaker considered gigafactories as products and it wants to develop an expertise in making this new product.
Furthermore, China is an important market for Tesla and the company needs to expand its retail and service network in the country with new locations, as well as its Supercharger network.
A construction unit could be useful for those projects too.
In the meantime, the focus is on Gigafactory 3, which is expected to start production on October 14th.
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.
Future expansions are expected to include battery production and production of Tesla’s upcoming Model Y next year.