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The opening ceremony of BYD's battery factory in Shengzhou, a county-level city of Shaoxing, on June 14. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

The new battery factory of Chinese new energy automaker BYD started operations in Shengzhou, a county-level city of Shaoxing, on June 14.

With an investment of 13 billion yuan ($1.94 billion), the factory covers an area of 120 hectares and is expected to have an annual output of over 20 billion yuan.

Sheng Yuechun, Party secretary of Shaoxing, and Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, delivered speeches at the ceremony.

The Shenzhen, Guangdong province-based company sold 641,350 NEVs, most of which were in China, in the first six months, up 314 percent from the same period last year, according to its filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. That was nearly 80,000 units more than Tesla, which sold 564,743 vehicles from January to June.

According to Sheng, the city will try to attract more new energy vehicle manufacturers. He added that the new factory is expected to help upgrade Shaoxing's automobile industry.

BYD quit the gasoline car business in March this year, becoming the first conventional carmaker worldwide to focus solely on the NEV segment.

Wang said that it took only eight months for BYD to construct and open the factory. The company said it will help transform the local industrial chain and offer jobs to locals.