Tesla’s Shanghai factory restores 70% of pre-lockdown weekly output level

Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory has restored weekly output to reach nearly 70% of the level before Shanghai authorities imposed a citywide lockdown on April to control an outbreak of Covid-19.

While Gigafactory 3, also known as Giga Shanghai, has already reached 70% of its pre-lockdown output levels, Tesla China is expected to increase output further this week, a source told Reuters.

The Giga Shanghai has been running with two shifts a day since late last week, according to the source. The Shanghai factory is dealing with a number of challenges such as insufficient workers, transportation issues that impacted the supplies of parts.

Before it resumed a two-shift operation at the Shanghai factory, Tesla isolated many workers in abandoned camp to ensure any contacts of Covid-19, Bloomberg reported last week.

After reopening on April 19, the Shanghai factory produced 10,757 vehicles by the end of April, selling 1,512 of them, data from the China Passenger Car Association shown.

Giga Shanghai’s April numbers represented a 97.7% decline month-over-month, which also marked the lowest sales tally since April 2020. Tesla sold 65,814 cars in March.

The Shanghai factory, located in Pudong’s Lingang free-trade zone and connected to Yangshan Deep-Water Port by the Donghai Bridge, has lost about 50,000 vehicles in production due to reduced shifts at Giga Shanghai between March 28 and April 18.

Giga Shanghai’s production will likely accelerate in the upcoming weeks because the local authorities will start lifting city-wide lockdown for businesses to resume work from Wednesday, a city official said on Sunday.

In an online interview with the Financial Time earlier this month, Tesla co-founder and chief executive Elon Musk praised Chinese factory workers for pulling extreme hours during the period.