The opening of the $200 million Megapack battery plant in Shanghai highlights Elon Musk’s unusual position as Tesla CEO and Trump administration adviser.

US electric vehicle maker Tesla’s Megapack battery plant began production on Tuesday. Tesla’s Shanghai mega-factory in the Ling-gang Special Area started its operations with an opening ceremony, according to Tesla, which is owned by US billionaire and advisor to the US government Elon Musk.

As Tesla's first energy storage Megafactory outside the United States, the new Lin-gang plant only took nine months from groundbreaking, which took place in May 2024, to its official operation. This was three months faster than when Tesla's EV gigafactory in Lin-gang became operational in January 2020.

U.S. carmaker Tesla's new Megafactory in Shanghai, dedicated to manufacturing its energy-storage batteries, known as Megapacks, launched production on Tuesday, marking a significant expansion of the company's presence in China.

Tesla Shanghai energy storage Megafactory launches production on February 11. Photo: courtesy of Tesla. Tesla held a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the production launch of its Megapack energy storage plant in Shanghai’s Lingang New Area,

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has officially started production at its Shanghai battery megafactory, dedicated to manufacturing its high-capacity Megapack energy storage systems, according to Chinas state news agency,

Tesla's gigafactory for EV production in Lin-gang, which is also the first plant of its kind that the US EV maker has built overseas, was the largest foreign-invested manufacturing project in Shanghai with a total investment of 50 billion yuan.

Tesla's battery megafactory in Shanghai, for manufacturing its megapack batteries, has launched production on Tuesday, Chinese official news agency Xinhua said.