As Tesla’s Gigafactory Shanghai continues to ramp up production following a 22-day production halt in March and April, the automaker’s May deliveries are showing promise of moving back to full production capacity.
Tesla sold 32,165 China-built vehicles in May, after selling just 1,152 in April amidst COVID-19 production shutdowns, according to China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) data released on Thursday.
The sales were made up of 9,825 local deliveries, leaving 22,340 of the units exported — following zero exports in April, 60 in March and 11,527 in May 2021.
The local deliveries represent a 62 percent decline year-over-year, with the overall deliveries jumping 212 percent from April.
Shanghai’s quarterly production is also expected to drop by more than a third from the year’s first quarter, again due to the production halt.
Tesla Still Leads EV Brands in the UK as of May 2022, Despite Shanghai Lockdown Woes https://t.co/dqTxcHzMBd
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) June 6, 2022
Passenger car sales overall dropped to 1.37 million in May for a 17.3 percent decrease year-over-year.
Tesla is expected to end the closed-loop production system at Giga Shanghai, a system that was created to get the factory up and running while minimizing COVID-19 exposure amidst surging cases.
With COVID-19 restrictions easing, Tesla has also started an online hiring event on Thursday, with two dozen job postings seeking new hires for “smart manufacturing” roles.
The news comes after Elon Musk said last week the company was set to increase hourly hires and cut back salaried staff.
At the end of last month, Tesla’s Giga Shanghai production reached 70 percent of its pre-lockdown levels.
The automaker also started double shifts at Tesla’s Shanghai facility close to last month’s end, and it’s also expecting to reach normal operations sometime this month.
