Tesla will more than double daily production at Giga Shanghai to 2,600 electric vehicles starting Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) plans to return production at its Shanghai plant to levels before the city's Covid-19 lockdown by Tuesday, a day later than its most recent plan, Reuters said today, citing an internal memo.
Tesla will more than double daily production at its Giga Shanghai to 2,600 electric vehicles starting Tuesday, according to the report.
That would bring Tesla's weekly production to nearly 16,000 electric vehicles, compared with about 1,000 produced on Monday, the report said.
Reuters previously reported that Tesla was targeting the Shanghai plant to get production back to pre-lockdown levels on May 16. But on May 16 an updated Reuters report said that Tesla had delayed the plan by at least a week.
For Tesla, doubling the number of workers living near the production line to maintain a "closed-loop" operation remains a challenge, last week's report said.
There is also uncertainty on the supply side, as factories in Shanghai and surrounding areas for suppliers and logistics have not yet returned to normal, the report noted.
Tesla's Shanghai plant was shut down when the city entered a phased lockdown from March 28 and officially began resuming production on April 19, with 8,000 employees returning to their jobs, according to local media reports.
Capacity utilization at Tesla's Shanghai plant was above 45 percent, slightly below SAIC's 50 percent, an official at the city's new Lingang district said at a May 17 press briefing.
On May 20, a Bloomberg report said Tesla plans to keep employees at its Shanghai plant working in the closed-loop system until mid-June, even if Shanghai moves to ease restrictions on the lockdown.
The company's thousands of workers have been sleeping on the factory floor for 12-hour shifts, six days a week, to restart production after weeks of suspension due to the lockdown, the report said, adding that at this stage, Tesla wants to move those workers to a dormitory and keep them in a closed status until June 13.
