Photo: Yang Hui/GT

US electric carmaker Tesla delivered its first batch of made-in-China Model 3s to 15 of its employees from salespeople to delivery team workers on Monday. 

The employees work in different cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province. The first grey-colored Model 3 was delivered to one salesperson working in Tesla's Xintiandi store in Shanghai. 

Orders for the made-in-China Tesla Model 3s have been "very hot," one executive of Tesla China told the Global Times on Monday, without disclosing the actual ordering numbers.  

"We have the goal of selling all the Model 3s that we produce in Gigafactory 3, and now we are very confident of achieving that goal," the executive said. 

Tesla will start delivering made-in-China Model 3s to mainland customers presumably in early January. 

According to senior executives from Tesla China, Tesla's Gigafactory 3 now produces more than 1,000 cars each week, and will be able to produce 3,000 cars per week "in the near future." 

"Tesla's Shanghai plant will further enhance its production capacity," Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla, said on Monday. 

The Tesla executives also disclosed that currently, about 30 percent of made-in-China Model 3s' parts are sourced in China, but the car will be completely "localized" by the end of next year, meaning that all of its parts will be supplied by Chinese companies at that time.