Coronavirus China: Tesla shuts down Gigafactory 3 for two days for Shanghai to mass test workers to push back against Covid-19 relapse

Tesla will suspend all operations at its Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai for two days to allow health authorities to test every employee for the Omicron variant as the Covid-19 outbreak threatens to flare up again in China’s commercial hub.

Production of Tesla’s Model 3 electric sedans and Model Y sports-utility vehicles (SUVs) will be halted on Wednesday and Thursday while the factory is sealed off, according to two people familiar with the arrangement. Tesla’s spokespeople did not respond to requests for confirmation.

Tesla’s two-day shutdown in Shanghai’s Lingang free-trade zone is part of the city’s partial lockdown, where the 95-square kilometre Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park has been sealed off, while the Yangshan deep water port – the world’s busiest container port – operates under A-B crew rotation to minimise transmission risks. Gigafactory 3, which began production in 2020, contributed to 51.7 per cent of Tesla’s worldwide output last year.

“We are expanding our campaign to screen for infections,” said Yan Bo, the deputy governor of Shanghai’s Pudong district, where Gigafactory 3 and Zhangjiang are located, said during a press conference. “Some key areas in Pudong are undergoing mass nucleic acid tests.”

Shanghai, which had kept the Covid-19 disease mostly at bay, is seeing a resurgence that threatens to undo its defences, where 1,000 people tested positive since the start of March, more than the sum of the past two years. Hundreds of communities and neighbourhoods throughout the city of 25 million residents have been partially locked down for authorities to find the transmission chains and isolate infected cases.

About 1.2 million people in Pudong have been tested for Covid-19. Typically, a venue is sealed off for 48 hours to enable residents and employees in the area to undergo two nucleic acid tests.