Chinese Chongqing city district discussed projects with Tesla

U.S. automaker Tesla Inc has met with authorities from a district in the city of Chongqing in southwestern China to talk about “accelerating projects”, the Liangjiang New Area stated on Tuesday.

Officials met Tesla Vice-president Tao Lin to talk, Chongqing’s Liangjiang New Area stated in a Wechat social media post.

It said government official Duan Chenggang welcomed Tao’s visit for promoting cooperation, without providing more details.

The official China Securities Journal newspaper, mentioned unidentified sources, said cooperation could involve the establishment of sales and maintenance centres instead of factories.

Tesla is yet to comment on the report.

The company started a plant in Shanghai last year, it’s first outside the United States, with the backing of the city’s government.

It is building Model 3 electric sedans there and has sold nearly 30,000 units in the past three months.

Tesla is right now weighing up a decision to construct a $1.1 billion assembly plant in the United States which could create 20,000 jobs.

With investors betting Tesla could demonstrate a quarterly profit in its July 22 report and potentially join the S&P 500 index, Tesla is now the world’s most valuable automaker, followed by Toyota and Volkswagen.