China Fund News reporter Wu Yu
On the last day of the holiday, Tesla sent big news: confirmed that a second factory will be built in Shanghai! The plant is poised to add 450,000 vehicles to its annual production capacity, including the Model 3 and Model Y, to become "the world's largest auto export hub."
As soon as the news came out, it quickly rushed to the Weibo hot search.
Tesla confirmed it will build a second plant in Shanghai
The annual production may reach 1 million units
It was a thank-you note. According to Reuters, Tesla recently wrote a thank-you letter to the Shanghai government.
In the letter, Tesla thanked Lingang officials for their support and described how a company operated by Lingang Group arranged for buses to transport 6,000 Tesla workers and their suppliers to the factory and carry out the disinfection work needed for the company to enter "closed-loop" production.
Tesla said in the letter that they fought for three consecutive days, working day and night to ensure that our company's workers could return to the factory. The letter also outlines how Tesla plans to further expand its factory in Shanghai.
What's more, in the letter, Tesla China confirmed plans to build a second plant in Shanghai, which is poised to increase annual production capacity of 450,000 vehicles, including the Model 3 and Model Y, to become "the world's largest auto export hub."
Last year, Musk revealed that the capacity of the Shanghai Gigafactory has now surpassed that of the Fremont plant, and Tesla has used the Chinese factory as a new major export hub.
According to the data, Tesla's Shanghai factory will deliver about 484,100 vehicles (including exports) in 2021, accounting for 51.7% of Tesla's cumulative global deliveries in 2021.
If the plan for the second plant is true, Tesla will increase the total production capacity of the Shanghai plant to 1 million vehicles per year after the completion of the expansion of the new plant.
Production resumed after a 22-day shutdown
Affected by the epidemic in Shanghai and other places, the mainland automobile supply chain has been impacted, and a number of car companies have announced the suspension of production since March.
Among them, from March 28, Tesla suspended the production activities of the Shanghai Gigafactory. With the escalation of epidemic control, the Shanghai Gigafactory canceled the plan to resume production scheduled for April 1.
Three weeks after the shutdown, on April 19, Tao Lin, tesla vice president of external affairs, announced on Weibo that Tesla's Shanghai gigafactory officially resumed work and production. Tesla said that with the help of relevant departments, it is actively promoting the resumption of work and production of more than 100 parts manufacturers and smoothing logistics.
According to media reports, under the coordination of the deployment of governments at all levels in Shanghai, on April 17 and 18, 8,000 employees returned to the factory one after another. A number of assembly lines have been operated, among which the Tesla Phase II vehicle workshop is currently the most efficient automated vehicle production line. Song Gang, senior director of production and manufacturing at Tesla Gigafactory, said: "We will gradually climb production capacity in the next 3 or 4 days to the overall single shift full production. ”
On April 30, Shanghai held a press conference on the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and Zhang Hongtao, chief engineer of the Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, introduced that the resumption rate of the first batch of "white list" enterprises exceeded 80%, and saicar automakers and Tesla companies have steadily achieved batch roll-off of the whole vehicle; the capacity utilization rate of SMIC and Huahong Group has continued to remain above 90%, which has effectively driven the resumption of work and production of related supporting enterprises.
Musk revealed earlier
The Shanghai plant will have a record weekly production
On April 21, Tesla, which has just resumed work and production, released its Q1 financial report, and in the conference call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave Tesla a thumbs up for resuming work in Shanghai. Musk said that although the Shanghai plant has recently reduced production capacity due to shutdowns, it has now resumed production capacity and will achieve a record weekly production. It is understood that the weekly output of the Shanghai plant was about 16,000 vehicles.
He predicts that production in the second quarter will be the same as that in the first quarter, but that high production will be achieved in the third and fourth quarters. He estimates Tesla could produce 1.5 million cars this year.
Stock price fell more than 16% in more than a month
However, although the Shanghai Gigafactory officially resumed work and production, Tesla's stock price did not rebound much. Wind data shows that since March 29, Tesla's stock price has fallen by more than 16%.