Based on new details shared by the chief engineer of the Shanghai Economics and Information Technology Commission Zhang Hongtao, Tesla has ramped electric vehicle production in China back up to over 80 percent of capacity. Hongtao added that many other companies in China are also successfully ramping up after the lengthy lockdowns.
According to Teslarati, China basically whitelisted certain companies so that they could ramp up production and minimize the overall impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns and related supply chain constraints. Nearly 2,000 companies have now been whitelisted, and Tesla is, of course, on the list.
On April 19, 2022, some 8,000 Tesla employees returned to work at Giga Shanghai. The electric car company's battery and motor units reportedly ramped back up to full capacity almost immediately. Meanwhile, Tesla has been working to get vehicle production back on par as quickly as possible amid the challenges.
As of April 22, just a few days after the factory welcomed back workers in a closed-loop setup, CEO Elon Musk claimed that the Giga Shanghai factory was already “coming back with a vengeance.” For those unaware, Tesla opened the factory with workers eating and sleeping in-house as part of the plan to return to work during the lockdowns.
Hongtao noted in a recent press conference that a new whitelist is being put together to allow more than 1,000 other companies to open back up. Teslarati cites a Global Times article that specifies that the new list contains companies that make cars and other equipment, as well as those in biomedicine.
We learned during Tesla's recent Q1 2022 earnings conference call that the automaker lost about a month's worth of production during the lockdown in China. However, Musk noted that the factory will still likely produce as many cars in Q2 2022 as it did in the first quarter of the year.
Clearly, had there not been a factory pause, Tesla may have been able to meet its goal to increase production going forward. The CEO is confident about Q3 and Q4 growth.
