Tesla has told some employees to report back to work at its Fremont factory as early as next week, according to internal messages seen by Bloomberg. Tesla previously told workers that it expected to resume normal production May 4, the day after the Bay area’s shelter-in-place order is scheduled to end.
Bloomberg reports that staff working in paint and stamping operations have been asked to return on April 29. This could lead to another clash with local authorities. San Francisco Mayor London Breed recently said it was “very likely” that the stay-at-home order could be extended “by a few weeks or even a month.”
The automaker suspended vehicle production on March 23, and has since had a skeleton crew working on upgrading production lines in order to increase Model Y production capacity. Credit Suisse analysts have estimated that the factory shutdown is costing Tesla some $300 million per week.
Meanwhile, Gigafactory 1 in Nevada is scheduled to reopen on May the 4th (Star Wars Day), according to Mike Kazmierski, President of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada (via KOLO TV).
There will be several new rules in place to ensure employee safety. Workers will be required to wear masks at some workstations, and to practice social distancing. Tesla has set up partitions around workstation that are less than 6 feet apart. Janitors will disinfect door handles regularly, and hand sanitizer, masks and gloves will be available. Transportation shuttles will operate at 30 percent of capacity to give employees enough space to sit 6 feet apart.
Tesla will be screening employees’ body temperatures as they arrive at the plant. In case any employees test positive for COVID-19, they will be interviewed and their movements tracked to try to find out how they got infected, and who else might have been exposed.
Sources: KOLO TV, CleanTechnica, Bloomberg, Electrek
source https://chargedevs.com/newswire/tesla-prepares-to-reopen-fremont-nevada-factories/
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