Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., stated this week that the company will be making cars in China for the next three to four years.
Tesla delivered its first eight electric sedans to customers in the country on Tuesday, according to ABC News.
Musk said the company will most likely invest several hundred million dollars toward charging infrastructure in China, which he said will open several hundred service centers.
"My instructions to the team are to spend money as fast as they can spend it without wasting it," he said.
Tesla will build a large network of battery-charging stations, which will include superchargers in Beijing and Shanghai, Bloomberg reported.
China is the world's largest auto market, which gives Tesla the chance to sell cars at cheaper prices by avoiding China's 25 percent tariff. Additionally, the company now has the chance to sell as many vehicles in the country as its U.S. market by early 2015. Musk said he hopes Chinese customers will be incentivized to buy electric cars.
"I think they can sell quite a few here in the market," Finbarr O'Neill, president of J.D. Power & Associates, said. "There's a lot of talk about Tesla but, you know, their numbers are not huge. Mr. Musk has been successful in many fields. I wish him luck, but there's a limit to every market."
Tesla will have to work with a local company and form a joint venture to make vehicles in China, Bloomberg reported. Musk said that the company has not yet discussed any important partnerships and will most likely not make an announcement on collaborations for at least a year.
Musk also talked about charging stations equipped with solar panels, which he said was meant to show that vehicles can run without coal fuel, ABC News reported. He added that the stations will be built in both cities and between them to make long-distance travel easier.
Musk said that Tesla may sell 5,000 cars this year in China, but emphasized that the number was "just a guess."
"I do think that's probably a good number. Maybe it will be higher," he said. "I don't honestly know. Thus far, the response has been very positive."
