Tesla Gigafactory Shanghai is going out of ‘closed loop’ with workers sleeping at the plant this week

Tesla is planning to get Gigafactory Shanghai out of its ‘closed loop’ system with workers sleeping at the factory by the end of the week.

Like many other companies, Tesla had to shut down production at its Shanghai factory last month after local authorities imposed serious lockdowns on the population in an attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19 after a surge in cases during the first quarter. The automaker was finally able to restart production on April 19 after 22 days of being shut down.

Tesla brought back 8,000 people to work in a “closed-loop” shift, where people slept at the factory to help reduce worker movements in the city. At the time, we noted that on top of missing 22 days of production, it would take time for Tesla to ramp production back up to pre-lockdown levels.

Last month, we learned that Tesla was actually making a lot of progress and aimed to ramp production back to 2,600 vehicles per day by May 16. However, we noted at the time that it appeared to be an ambitious goal that is going to be difficult to achieve.

Sure enough, Tesla confirmed supplier issues in May that some reports suggested resulted in production stalling to just 200 units a day. In a new memo in late May, Tesla said that it is sticking to one shift for now and doesn’t plan to ramp up to 2,600 units until at least May 23. The automaker ended up achieving that during the last week of May.

Now we learn that Tesla employees can finally go back to a resemblance of a normal life by commuting to work again.

South China Morning Post reported:

Tesla plans to exit the so-called “closed loop” system at its Shanghai factory on Saturday after nearly eight weeks, said two executives with the electric carmaker’s suppliers.

Some employees have been living at the plant since April 19, making great sacrifices in allowing Tesla to continue operations at the factory.

Now Tesla is looking to double the output of the factory compared to pre-shutdown numbers.

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