Tesla Inc. apparently began building a $5 billion factory in China. The mega factory is being built with the help from local partners, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
According to Bloomberg, the electric car maker is planning to raise some of the funds for the factory from partners in China which will help ease the carmaker’s financial burden.
Tesla announced initial plans to build a factory in China last month after Beijing raised duties on auto imports from the U.S. to 40 percent. China is the second-largest market for Tesla.
Last month a spokesperson for Tesla announced that the construction would begin in the “near future” and the factory could begin manufacturing cars in roughly two years. The spokesperson added that the expansion to China will not affect Tesla’s operations in the U.S.
This is Tesla’s first move overseas, marking a beginning that officials from the company have said they hope will spread Tesla’s international presence even further with a factory in Europe.
The White House in recent months imposed tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods which resulted in China responding with levies of the same amount.
Several companies, including motorcycle company Harley-Davidson, have announced they are taking their production overseas in anticipation of financial losses caused by retaliatory tariffs.
Last month, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk announced that an “extensive and damaging sabotage” was done by a Tesla employee.
According to the chief executive officer, the company made a detailed investigation which found the full extent of the damage done by an employee who changed the code of an internal project and exposed data to third parties.
“The full extent of his actions are not yet clear, but what he has admitted to so far is pretty bad,” Musk wrote, adding that the unnamed employee supposedly took action against the company after being passed up for a promotion.
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