The Tesla Giga Shanghai plant in China might soon become the world’s largest electric vehicle plant, exceeding the Tesla Factory in Fremont, California.

In the Q3 report, Tesla said that the potential manufacturing output (installed annual capacity) of Giga Shanghai is at over 450,000 annually (Model 3 and Model Y), compared to “up to 600,000” at the Fremont factory (500,000 Model 3/Y and 100,000 Model S/X).

However, the recent wholesale sales numbers are already exceeding those numbers. In September it was 56,006, while in October 54,391.

The two-month average of roughly 55,200 indicates that the combined output of the Made-in-China (MIC) Model 3/Model Y is at 672,000 per year.

As we can see in new flyover videos (the first one above is from Jason Yang), the plant is still in a process of expansion with new construction areas to further increase of manufacturing capacity. It was also confirmed that a $188 million investment is coming.

Wu Wa reports that currently it appears that Tesla is producing significantly more Model Y than Model 3.

“Earlier, Musk said at the 2020 shareholder meeting that he expects the Shanghai factory to achieve an annual production target of 1 million units. And in 2021, Tesla plans production capacity of about 550,000 units, which is now close to this figure.

With Tesla’s additional RMB 1.2 billion investment in the Shanghai plant, its use is optimized in the existing production lines, in the process expanding the production capacity of the press shop, body shop, paint shop, final assembly shop and logistics operation center.

The expansion increases the number of job employees from 4,000 to 19,000, a big boost in the number of jobs. This prepares for the high production capacity next year. So, we will see if the production capacity can reach 1 million units next year.”

It’s remarkable that the plant started production less than two years ago (late 2019) and now it’s probably the biggest electric car factory in the world with a chance to be also the first to hit the 1 million/year volume.