Tesla Completes Construction of its Shanghai V3 Supercharger Factory, Enters Final Testing Phase

Electric automaker Tesla Inc. has officially completed construction of its Shanghai Supercharger factory, Chinese news outlet Gasgoo reports. The factory will build the thousands of Superchargers that Tesla plans to deploy in China to support its expansion in the world's biggest auto market.

The 54,000 sq ft factory includes five semi-automated assembly lines, which are capable of producing 10,000 Superchargers per year.

The next phase before the plant is fully operational is testing all of the equipment and assembly lines, which will run through Sept 25. After that, acceptance testing will begin on Sept 26 and run through Oct 30, according to Gasgoo.

The factory was built quickly and limited production was started in February. The facility was originally scheduled to be fully operational by June 2021, but Tesla made significant changes to the design which extended construction by an additional three months, according to Gasgoo.

The new factory will produce Tesla's latest V3 Superchargers, which can add roughly 155 miles of range for a Model 3 in about 15 minutes. 

Before the Shanghai factory was constructed, all of Tesla's superchargers deployed in China were imported from the U.S. The chargers were first built at Tesla's Fremont, California factory where the company builds all of the electric vehicles sold in the U.S. 

Tesla eventually moved Supercharger production to its Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, where it also manufactures solar roof tiles for Tesla's solar business.

In addition to being more powerful, Tesla's next-generation V3 Superchargers can also charge more vehicles at the same time. The company said the V3 chargers will ultimately cut the amount of time customers have to spend charging their vehicles by an average of 50%, based on fleet data collected by Tesla.

Tesla said its V3 Superchargers support a peak charge rate of up to 250kW, which is more than double the output of the V2 Superchargers which deliver charge rates of 120kW. 

"In order to drive continued electric vehicle adoption and further accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy, charging needs to be even faster, and the number of vehicles able to charge at a location in a day needs to be significantly higher," Tesla wrote in a blog post in 2019 when the V3 Superchargers were first unveiled.

Tesla said it completely redesigned the electrical architecture of the V3 Superchargers. Each provides 1 megawatt (MW) of power, which is the same as Tesla's utility products. It's enough to power an entire building.

In August, Tesla reached an important milestone in China with the opening of its 7,000th charging station. Last month, the automaker rolled out its new V3 Superchargers in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Tianjin, Yantai, Heze, Tengzhou, Lvliang, Guangzhou, Foshan, and Zhaoqing.

To date, Tesla has deployed its EV chargers in over 330 cities across China as its prepares for expansion in the world's biggest auto market.

In June, Tesla completed the longest east-west supercharging route in China stretching more than 5,000 kilometer (3,100 miles) along the country's famed Silk Road. The route includes 27 charging stations strategically placed along the way.