Tesla halts production after a rocky quarter

Tesla hit with new lawsuit alleging racial abuse against Black workers. (credits: Google)

• Company’s quarterly deliveries of 254,695 fell short of analyst expectations.
• Tesla produced more vehicles in June than in any other month in its history.
• The company will undergo upgrades to improve production of both Model Y and Model 3.

After the Fourth of July vacation, Tesla Inc. investors have much to consider: a disappointing quarter of deliveries, a record-setting month of production, and now several weeks of downtime at various plants. Bloomberg reported last month that the electric vehicle manufacturer will cease production on its Model Y assembly line in Shanghai for the first two weeks of July, followed by a 20-day pause on the Model 3 line beginning on July 18. According to sources acquainted with the situation, the factory’s upgrades to improve production of both vehicles are planned to be finished by the beginning of August. Monday, TeslaMag reported that the automaker’s facility in Berlin will close for two weeks beginning July 11. Citing an unnamed source, the German website said that Tesla plans to approximately treble its production rate beginning in August. During at least one week last month, 1,000 Model Ys were assembled at the plant. Tesla did not mention these goals in its production and delivery announcement on July 2. The automaker provided an optimistic outlook—it produced more vehicles in June than in any other month in its history—while announcing quarterly deliveries of 254,695, which fell short of analyst expectations. Philippe Houchois, a Jefferies analyst with a buy rating on Tesla shares, stated on July 3 that the “relative weakness” of the quarter was anticipated. He said that Elon Musk’s comments referring to the company’s new factories as “money furnaces” suggest that Tesla’s free cash flow may have been significantly impacted by working capital issues. Shanghai’s weeks-long closure due to a Covid outbreak was the most detrimental to Tesla’s performance in the previous quarter. Thousands of workers slept on-site to maintain partial production while the corporation went to extreme efforts to restore the factory and keep it operating. Tesla’s most productive factory is in Shanghai, while other operations near Berlin and Austin, Texas are barely getting started. Musk hosted opening celebrations on March 22 and April 7 at the former and the latter, respectively. A few weeks later, though, the CEO’s tone was much more depressed. During those events, Musk danced in Germany and sported a cowboy hat and sunglasses in Texas, but he sounded much more sombre a few weeks later.

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“Berlin and Austin are losing billions of dollars right now because there’s a tonne of expense and hardly any output,” Musk told the Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley on May 31. “Getting Berlin and Austin functional and getting Shanghai back in the saddle fully are overwhelmingly our concern.” The Shanghai shutdown and difficulties in ramping up new facilities contributed to Tesla’s record quarterly decline of 38 percent in the three months ending in June. The S&P 500 fell 16%, the largest drop for the leading US stock index since the first quarter of 2020.

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