Tesla appears to have shut down Fremont factory for upgrades

Tesla appears to have shut down Fremont factory as very little activity has been spotted at the gigantic factory.

CEO Elon Musk had warned that Tesla would have factory shutdowns in Q3 for upgrades.

During Tesla’s Q2 earnings report, Musk said that Tesla is expecting production to be lower in Q3 due to factory shutdowns:

We continue to target 1.8 million vehicle deliveries this year, although we expect that Q3 production will be a little bit down because we’ve got some shutdowns to for — a lot of factory upgrades. So, just probably a slight decrease in production in Q3 for sort of global factory upgrades.

The CEO didn’t elaborate on which factories beyond “global factory upgrades,” but Fremont factory and Gigafactory Shanghai are top contenders because they produce the Model 3 and Tesla is expected to soon upgrade the vehicle, which would require factory upgrades.

Now a new drone flyover of Fremont factory from Tuesday shows very little activity at the plant:

There are over 10,000 people working at the factory. Generally, the parking lots are full, and there’s a ton of activity around the plant.

The fact that it is much quieter right now would suggest that there’s at least a partial shutdown – and maybe even a full shutdown – right now.

As for upgrades, you can see them happening in the video. For example, Tesla appears to be building foundations for a new giga press:

Tesla already has two in operation at Fremont factory, and it has been deploying them at all of its factories in order to produce larger casting parts and reduce the overall number of parts it takes to build vehicle bodies.

Electrek’s Take

It’s good that the upgrades are happening somewhat early in the quarter; it will give Tesla time to ramp back up after and an opportunity to catch up for the downtime.

However, Tesla’s sale and delivery teams are likely going to have to face a big delivery wave at the end of the quarter because of it.