By Bronson Jayamanna
California, USA (CWBN)_ According to an internal memo obtained by CNBC, Tesla will be shutting down its production line at the Fremont, California factory for 18 days, starting from the 24th December through 11th January. The production lines suspended will be the ones that are used for the production of the Model S and Model X vehicles.
The company has not made it clear as to why such a decision has been taken up nor what the company plans to do with the halted production lines. Staff occupying the production lines will be reportedly offered full pay for one of the weeks, while some paid holidays, and they will be able to collaborate with other departments within the company. The memo goes on to state that staff can also volunteer to help costumers with the delivery of vehicles during the production line hiatus.
Edward Niedermeyer, an auto industry expert, said that in 2015, in order to build 195,000 Model S and Model 10 cars, Tesla asked the State of California for tax concessions. In addition to the expected annual average of about 77,000 S and X cars, the firm told the State of California that it would extend its manufacturing capacity in expectation of “approximately 118,000 additional models per year.” Tesla manufactured 145,000 vehicles and supplied 139,300 in the third quarter of 2020. Tesla manufactured slightly fewer than 17,000 Model S and X cars, of which 15,200 were delivered.
Currently, Tesla is building its next facility in Austin, Texas, and Elon Musk has meanwhile threatened to move all of Tesla out of California. He announced that he moved his home from California to Texas, a move which would save millions in taxes.
On a separate work email to employees, Musk had noted that the demand for Tesla vehicles has been “quite a bit higher than production this quarter,”. He urged staff to help increase rate of work and noted that if they have any suggestions, “Please send me a note directly if you see ways to improve output, but feel that your voice is not being heard,”.
Back during the October battery day event, Tesla announced it expected to deliver 500,000 vehicles by 2020. However, at that point, the company had only delivered 318,350 cars to its customers; thus, it would have to ramp up production to provide the remaining 181,000 vehicles to reach its target.
