[5] Unique among foreign automakers in China, the plant is wholly owned by Tesla and not operated as a joint venture with a Chinese company, the first time the government had allowed such an arrangement.

[6] In July 2018 Tesla CEO Elon Musk signed an agreement with the Shanghai regional government to build its third Gigafactory, and the first in China.

[15] On 26 September 2018, the bidding process for the newly acquired plots Q01-05 in the area designated as 04PD-0303 were advertised, with the restriction that the land be used for electric car manufacturing, with a minimum investment requirement.

[16][17] The public environmental impact consultation for Phase 1 of the project was opened on 24 October 2018, and scheduled to run for ten working days.

[22] Capital expenditures covering the land purchase and initial design costs for Gigafactory 3 were scheduled to occur in the fourth quarter of 2018.

[30] By March, foundation work in some areas of the large facility was in place and structure is being erected, with crews operating at the site on multiple shifts to accelerate construction.

[35] In April 2021, local reports have noted that preliminary work on the new site south of the main complex has been going on for some time.

Tesla was the sole bidder for the land, and while the bidding process Gigafactory produced vehicles and the Model Y at a rate of about 450,000 cars per year, the expanded site is already being prepared for construction.

[36] Expansion of Giga Shanghai was briefly halted in 2023 after the Chinese central government expressed concerns with Elon's activities at SpaceX, in particular the quickly expanding military applications of Starlink and its potential impact on global strategic defense.

[38] The Gigafactory Shanghai was temporarily shut down for approximately two weeks by order of the government on 29 January 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[46] Several precautions were taken to prevent virus spread,[47] so preliminary plans indicate Tesla could add a second shift of production by the beginning of Q2 2020 which would increase line capacity to approximately 3,500 vehicles per week.

[38] By the end of the year, it reached 8,000 vehicles per week,[48] and some of them were found to be right hand drive for export purpose[49] to Australia and New Zealand.

It officially reopened on 19 April 2022, initially operating only one shift, with 8,000 workers sleeping at the factory, but resumed normal production near the end of May.