The production of Tesla Model 3 at the Palo Alto, California facility is reportedly halted due to supply chain issues
According to a recent report emerged on the internet, Tesla has informed its employees of halting a portion of its production activities at its manufacturing unit in Palo Alto, California. The workers at the Model 3’s production line were told that it would be down between February 22 and March 7. However, some of them got back to work as early as February 24.
The American EV manufacturer’s share price fell by 8.6 per cent this past Monday and is reportedly down to CEO Elon Musk’s actions, as his personal value fell by 15 billion USD. This led to him being taken off the top spot as the richest person in the world. The global automotive industry is facing delays due to the production constraints caused by the lack of semiconductors and other internal issues.
Back to the Model 3, Tesla appears to be having supply chain gremlins at ports and the unfavourable weather conditions existing across many parts of the United States is affecting transportation and ultimately the sourcing of parts and components for production. Last month, Tesla said that the production operations could be affected due to the temporary shortage of electronic chips.
A few days ago, Samsung Electronics said that its operations were suspended at the Texas factory as a winter storm caused power outages while declining to comment on the affected customers using its internals. Tesla was said to be using chips from Samsung in Texas a couple of years ago dealing with autonomy and other technologies.
It is yet unknown the volume affected by the reported temporary pause in production at the California factory having a capacity of six lakh units per annum. With the increase in competition, Tesla recently announced the price drop of its Model 3 and Model Y and its shares were down by 6.77 per cent yesterday.
BMW CEO Oliver Zipse responded to Tesla’s ambitious claims of increasing its annual sales by 50 per cent as he believes the EV industry is moving at a fast pace it expects an average annual sales growth of 50%. Tesla is expected to enter India in the coming months and the first product will more likely be the Model 3 at a price range of around Rs. 60 lakh.