(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc.’s first Chinese car factory is officially plugged in.

State Grid Corp of China has opened the first transmission line in a power connection project that increases electricity supply to the Tesla plant to a level required for preliminary production, according to a statement from the Chinese company’s Shanghai branch. State Grid said it will eventually increase the power supply eightfold for the factory to run at capacity.

State Grid said the project - involving 55 kilometers of cables and about 17 kilometers of ducts - was among the quickest it has completed, taking only six months.

Palo Alto, California-based Tesla plans by the end of this year to produce at least 1,000 of its best-selling Model 3 cars a week at the plant, where construction only began at the start of this year. China has exempted Tesla from a 10% sales tax, and the company -- founded by Elon Musk -- has also secured hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from local banks.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Chunying Zhang in Shanghai at czhang714@bloomberg.net;Dan Murtaugh in Singapore at dmurtaugh@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net, Will Davies

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