Tesla has canceled plans to have its Shanghai plant resume production on Friday and Saturday, Reuters said, citing an internal notice.
As Shanghai grapples with the Covid outbreak, Tesla’s plant in the city will reportedly stop production for a longer period of time.
On March 28, a Reuters report said that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) Giga Shanghai will suspend production for four days to comply with the city’s policy on Covid control.
In the latest report published today, Reuters cited an internal notice saying that Tesla has canceled plans to have the Shanghai plant resume production on Friday and Saturday.
The Shanghai government issued an announcement on the evening of March 27 that the city would enter a phased lockdown for Covid testing.
The area east of the Huangpu River, where Tesla’s Shanghai plant is located, will be in lockdown from March 28 at 5:00 am until April 1 at 5:00 am. The area west of the Huangpu River will be in lockdown from April 1 at 3:00 am until April 5 at 3:00 am.
Prior to this, Shanghai had been taking steps to combat the pandemic as cases of Covid were reported. But as the number of cases continued to grow rapidly, the city increased its efforts.
The Reuters report today said Tesla initially planned to resume production at Giga Shanghai on April 1, but the latest notice said it canceled plans to restart production on April 1 and April 2.
Tesla has yet to obtain a permit from the Shanghai government for its trucks to deliver assembled vehicles from Pudong to the western part of the city, the report said, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Tesla may also choose to extend the shutdown because of a worker shortage, with lockdowns in some residential areas still in place, the report said.
Tesla sold 56,515 China-made vehicles in February, of which 33,315 were exported and 23,200 were delivered in China, according to data released earlier this month by the China Passenger Car Association.
Tesla has a zero-inventory mechanism, which means its sales volume is essentially equal to its production. Each day of downtime at Giga Shanghai means a loss of about 2,000 units of production.
In the middle of this month, Reuters reported that Tesla Giga Shanghai suspended production for two days on March 16 and March 17, and resumed production on March 18.
