Tesla temporarily halting some production in California: report

Tesla has reportedly halted production of its Model 3 in California for two weeks.

Individuals familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that employees had been informed that Tesla’s production line in Fremont would be down from Feb. 22 until March 7. Workers were  told that they would not be paid from Feb. 28 to March 3 and were advised to take vacation time, according to the news outlet.

The plant in California is the most important part of Tesla’s production base, Bloomberg notes, capable of manufacturing 600,000 vehicles a year.

The Hill has reached out to Tesla for confirmation and comment.

The outlet notes that production line outages are not unusual in the automotive industry, though they do cost companies revenue when they occur. Tesla has recently said that it expects to increase global vehicle deliveries by more than 50 percent, Bloomberg notes, while also attempting to mitigate the effects of a global semiconductor shortage on its operations.

Tesla also has a production plant in Shanghai and is in the midst of building new plants in Texas and Germany. Development on the German plant was halted last year by a court out of concern that it would disturb snakes hibernating in the area.

Tesla reportedly sought to build a plant in Germany specifically to have the “Made in Germany” label on its vehicles.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said late last year that he had relocated to Texas, citing California’s regulations over technology companies as well as what he called innovation complacency throughout Silicon Valley.