By Maria Armental

Bloomberg News
Tesla Inc. reached an agreement with lenders in China to receive as much as a half-billion dollars to invest in its Shanghai factory currently under construction.
The electric-car maker said in a securities filing Thursday that a syndicate of lenders agreed to provide up to 3.5 billion yuan ($521 million) for construction and production expenses at its so-called Gigafactory Shanghai. Tesla’s lenders in the agreement are China Construction Bank Corp. /zigman2/quotes/208974133/delayed HK:939 -1.14% , Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. /zigman2/quotes/200705246/delayed HK:1288 -1.71% , Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. /zigman2/quotes/201401473/delayed HK:1398 -0.59% , and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co. /zigman2/quotes/204296742/delayed CN:600000 -0.41% .
Tesla /zigman2/quotes/203558040/composite TSLA +4.03% said it entered into the agreement for an unsecured 12-month term loan earlier this month.
Construction of what is to be the first foreign-owned car plant in China in China — and Tesla’s first massive Gigafactory outside of the U.S. — began in January. The plant, at a roughly 210-acre site east of downtown Shanghai, is crucial to the California company’s goal to scale up production in China. Tesla expects to begin production of the Model 3 sedan for the local market by the end of this year, targeting 10,000 vehicles a week, and mass production by next year.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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