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Bloomberg
After four years of planning, Tesla Inc finally broke ground on its planned $5 billion factory in the world’s biggest auto market.
But the timing couldn’t be more inauspicious.
Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and some Shanghai officials, including Mayor Ying Yong, on Monday attended a function at a site near the city kicking off construction of what would be the electric-vehicle maker’s first car-manufacturing facility outside the US. While the ceremony marked a new journey for Tesla, it comes at a point where China’s economy is showing signs of strain amid the trade war with the US.
In China, the billionaire-entrepreneur faces a car market that probably shrank last year for the first time in at least two decades as uncertainties surrounding the trade fight between the world’s two biggest econ-omies, signs of weakening domestic demand and a stock-market slump take their toll on consumers. The challenging environment al-so includes competition fr-om several startups that all want to be like Tesla.