Tesla's new Shanghai Megafactory starts exporting energy-storage batteries

SHANGHAI -- Tesla's new Megafactory in East China's Shanghai on Friday exported its first batch of Megapack energy-storage batteries, the company announced.

It took the new Megafactory just over a month after its production launch to achieve its first export, with the batteries being transported from Shanghai Port to Australia.

This export highlights Tesla's further expansion in the global energy storage market, and also underlines the extension of its battery technology from electric vehicles to energy storage, according to the company.

The batteries produced at the Shanghai facility will supply both the domestic and Asia-Pacific markets.

Megapack is an electrochemical energy storage device that uses lithium batteries -- a dominant technical route in the new-type energy storage industry. This sector is characterized by short construction periods, flexible layouts and fast responses, when compared to conventional pump storage.

Hailed by the company as a "milestone," the new Megafactory is the first of its kind built by Tesla outside the United States and the company's second plant in Shanghai, following the inauguration of its Gigafactory in 2019.

The Shanghai facility was built with an initial annual production capacity of 10,000 units. Notably, each Megapack unit can store over 3.9 megawatt-hours of energy -- sufficient to power approximately 3,600 households for one hour.

Tesla anticipates a year-on-year increase of at least 50 percent in its energy storage deployments in 2025.

"Megafactory gives us the ability to scale production and efficiency," said Mike Snyder, vice president of Tesla. "We can lower logistics costs as well as product costs, and grow the business to new markets."