Tesla Inc. will shut down production at its Fremont, Calif., factory for 18 days starting Christmas Eve, CNBC reported over the weekend.
Citing an internal email it obtained, CNBC reported Saturday that production lines for Model S and Model X vehicles will be shut down from Dec. 24 to Jan. 11.
Workers on the production line are reportedly being offered full pay for just one of those weeks, with some paid holidays, and are being asked to take unpaid days off or find “limited” work with other teams during the down time. They are also encouraged to “volunteer” to make deliveries to customers during that time, CNBC said.
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It it not unusual for Tesla to pause manufacturing for a short time while it works to improve its production line.
In a separate email to employees obtained by CNBC and Bloomberg News, Chief Executive Elon Musk said Friday that demand is “quite a bit higher than production this quarter,” and that “we need to increase production for the remainder of the quarter as much as possible.”
Tesla traditionally has endured an end-of-year crush to deliver its vehicles, both to meet production targets and to beat Jan. 1 deadlines for electric-vehicle tax breaks for customers.
Earlier this year, Tesla gave a target of delivering 500,000 cars in 2020. It maintained that guidance in its third-quarter earnings report in October.
Tesla will join the S&P 500 index on Dec. 18, and its stock his skyrocketed this year, rising nearly 630% year to date, compared to the S&P 500’s SPX,
