Connect with us

Investor's Corner

Tesla Gigafactory 3 funding reportedly incites competition among Chinese banks: insider

Published

8 years ago

on

Tesla has an aggressive timetable for Gigafactory 3. During the facility’s groundbreaking event, Elon Musk mentioned that he is hoping for Model 3 production to begin before the end of 2019. That’s a very ambitious goal, even for a company as daring as Tesla. For the project to move on as scheduled, after all, Tesla would have to acquire enough funding for the massive facility — a feat widely considered challenging by the company’s critics.

Last year, reports emerged from local Chinese media hinting that Tesla was receiving assistance in receiving low-interest loans from local Shanghai banks to fund part of Gigafactory 3’s construction. If a recent report is any indication, though, it appears that the upcoming battery and electric car factory is attracting the interest of quite a few financial institutions willing to loan money for the project. An insider, who asked to remain anonymous, reportedly revealed to Chinese news agency NBD that several financial firms are actually competing to give loans to the carmaker.

“I heard that many banks are fighting for this. There are local banks in Shanghai, state-owned banks, and foreign banks,” the insider said, according to Hexun News.

The insider further noted that Tesla would be allowed to use its property rights and patents as collateral for the facility’s funding. Apart from this, the insiders also mentioned that under normal circumstances, it usually takes 4-6 months for companies to iron out details about the financing of large-scale projects. In the case of the Silicon Valley-based carmaker, though, the local government has reportedly set up a special team to endorse Tesla’s financing loans after just two months.

These recent reports all but highlight the Chinese government’s favor for Tesla and its support for Elon Musk’s vision. While Elon Musk and Tesla continue to incite an equal amount of admiration and criticism in the United States, after all, the company and its CEO appear to be widely respected in China. After the groundbreaking ceremony at the Gigafactory 3 site in Shanghai, for example, Elon Musk met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing’s Tower of Violet Light — a place usually reserved for foreign dignitaries, not automotive CEOs.

During their meeting, Li proved supportive of Musk’s plans for Tesla’s expansion in the country, as well as his ideas for Gigafactory 3’s automation. Even when Elon Musk described his vision of a factory that behaves like a “living being,” Li was not dismissive. At one point in their conversation, Li even suggested that China can just issue a “Chinese Green Card” to the Tesla CEO, so that Musk can explore his ideas freely.

Advertisement
-

Considering the treatment that Musk received in China during his visit, as well as the recent reports of banks competing to give funding for Gigafactory 3, it appears safe to state that Tesla is favored by the country’s government. And it’s not just Elon Musk’s treatment or support from financial institutions either. As revealed in previous reports, the government’s support for Tesla and Gigafactory 3 has been pretty evident for a while now.

Last year, the country all but changed its strict rules when it allowed Tesla to become the sole owner of the upcoming battery and electric car factory. The government’s hand also seemed evident when Tesla placed its bid for the 864,885-square meter plot of land in Shanghai’s Lingang Industrial Zone, as the electric car maker’s bid went completely unchallenged. Earlier this month, it was also revealed that the contractor for the construction of Gigafactory 3 is a subsidiary of China Construction, a firm owned by the government.

With such a notable level of support from the country’s officials and institutions, there is a very good chance that Gigafactory 3 would be completed well within Tesla’s projected timetable. What remains to be seen, though, is if the electric car maker can set up its production lines in Shanghai at the same pace. With things now in motion, the ball now appears to be in Tesla’s court.

Advertisement
-
Related Topics:

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner

Elon Musk sat beside Trump as AI leaders signed a voluntary White House safety accord.

Published

1 hour ago

on

September 29, 2026

By

Elon Musk had the seat right next to President Donald Trump on Tuesday as the White House hosted the leaders of America’s biggest artificial intelligence companies for a lunch that ended with a voluntary industry accord on AI safety.

A seating chart Trump posted on Truth Social placed Musk at the president’s left in the East Room, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on his right, according to an Associated Press reporter. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also attended, along with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

After the lunch, Trump told reporters outside the West Wing that the executives had signed “The White House Accord on Superintelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.” Johnson described it as a voluntary statement of principles built on “robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review,” while Zuckerberg said company boards would independently review reports from outside auditors. Trump called the document “morally binding,” said he would name a new AI czar within days, and signed an executive order formally renaming artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” CNBC reported.

Advertisement
-

Musk was not in the room for Tesla alone. Since SpaceX absorbed xAI, he runs the company behind Grok and one of the largest AI training operations anywhere. On September 25, he said another 220,000 Nvidia GB300 chips would come online at Colossus 2 within a week, with more expected in November and December.

SpaceX confirms third massive compute deal at Colossus data center

 

Advertisement
-

Musk also used the trip to restate his energy ambitions. “SpaceX is aiming together with Tesla to do 200 gigawatts of solar production per year,” he said at an event in Washington. It is the same combined target he laid out that feeds directly into Terafab, the Tesla and SpaceX chip venture that will need enormous amounts of power.

The showing between Musk and Trump has come a long way, since the two had the very public split in mid 2025 after Musk opposed the “Big Beautiful Bill” and left DOGE. They reconciled at Charlie Kirk’s memorial that September, and Trump later called their relationship “good”. Since then, Musk has joined Trump’s China delegation in May and attended last week’s White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

For Tesla, that access to government official could pay dividends. As Teslarati noted in January, federal autonomy rules, NHTSA oversight and a single national standard for driverless vehicles all run through an administration Musk can more easily reach directly as Tesla works to scale Robotaxi and Cybercab beyond Texas.

Continue Reading

Investor's Corner

Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong

Published

16 hours ago

on

September 29, 2026

By

Credit: @thaichiminh1907/X

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) showrooms have been picked clean ahead of the end of the third quarter of the year, as demand looks to be strong and delivery estimates for new vehicles are pushed into late 2026 and early 2027.

Tesla appears to have sold out of many of its Model 3 and Model Y trim levels in the United States, as only the Model Y RWD and Model Y All-Wheel-Drive are available for delivery before the end of the year.

Additionally, many showrooms are either completely empty or void of all but just one demo unit within the buildings themselves in an effort to bolster what could be one of Tesla’s best quarters in vehicle deliveries in recent memory.

Advertisement
-

Additionally, when I spoke to the guys at Tesla Mechanicsburg two weeks ago, when I returned the Model Y L, their third hauler of the week had just arrived, and every vehicle on it, along with every vehicle in their delivery lot, was accounted for and had a name attached to it for delivery.

Advertisement
-

Tesla saw a 25 percent increase in deliveries in Q2 compared to the same quarter the year before. The vast majority of the 480,126 units it delivered, 467,762 vehicles to be exact, were the Model 3 and Model Y.

In Q3 2025, Tesla delivered 497,099 vehicles, once again a figure that was dominated by the company’s two mass-market vehicles. Analysts have unusually wide predictions for this quarter, likely because so many firms missed the Q2 delivery figure by such a substantial margin; Wall Street predicted 408,000 cars, while Tesla delivered 480,000.

Goldman Sachs has Tesla slotted for 435,000 deliveries in Q3, while JPMorgan said it anticipates 482,000. The median guess is about 449,000 deliveries for Q3.

Advertisement
-

Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest

Starship reached orbit despite losing an engine, deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites on Flight 14.

Published

1 day ago

on

September 28, 2026

By

SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit for the first time on Monday, and for a few nail-biting minutes it looked like it wouldn’t. During ascent on Flight 14, one of Ship 41’s six Raptor engines shut down early, and SpaceX’s livestream host Dan Huot told viewers the team had decided not to commit to orbit. Minutes later, after what Huot described as a lot of conversation in the control room, the final poll came back in favor, and a roughly 19 second burn of a single Raptor pushed the ship into orbit about 170 miles up.

The reversal matters because SpaceX had written the exit ramp into the mission plan. The company said it would only fire the orbital insertion burn if flight controllers confirmed enough backup hardware remained for the deorbit burn, a condition Teslarati laid out ahead of the flight. Losing an engine was exactly the scenario that rule was built for.

Pressing forward fits Elon Musk’s history. Falcon 1 failed three straight times before its fourth launch reached orbit in 2008, with SpaceX nearly out of money, and Starship was developed by flying prototypes until they broke. What changed this year SpaceX going public, and with $SPCX sliding below its IPO price in July when Flight 13 slipped, the short interest climbed significantly, as Teslarati reported at the time. A Starship potentially lost today with revenue generating next-gen Starlink satellites aboard would have landed directly on shareholders.

That pressure showed up after orbit. SpaceX cut a flight planned to last nearly 10 hours to about three, moving splashdown from west of Chile to the North Pacific near Hawaii. SpaceX gave no reason, though Musk said this month the company was being extremely cautious about debris risk. The single Raptor for deorbit worked, and Ship 41 completed its flip and landing burn before breaking apart in the water, an outcome SpaceX expected. Musk has structured SpaceX’s governance to shield long term bets from market pressure.

Advertisement
-

The payload is the bigger business story. Musk posted that all 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed and are “operating nominally.” Each V3 is rated for about 1 Tbps of downlink and 160 Gbps of uplink, so this single launch adds roughly 26 Tbps, about 10 times what a Falcon 9 load of V2 Mini satellites adds. The V3 is too large for Falcon 9, making Starship the only vehicle that can build out the planned 100,000 satellite constellation, at up to 60 per flight once it reaches routine service. Unlike the 20 V3 units on Flight 13, which reentered on a suborbital path, these will raise their orbits and could begin serving customers within weeks and bring in hundreds of millions of additional dollars in projected Starlink revenue.

SpaceX has already begun winding down Falcon 9 Starlink launches from Florida in favor of Starship. Reported targets put Flight 15 as early as October 19, leaving about three weeks to diagnose Monday’s engine shutdown before the next orbital attempt.

Continue Reading