Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory will officially resume work today but, limited by pandemic prevention regulations, a "closed-loop system" must be adopted. Simply put, if employees want to go to work, they can use the factory as their home, and eat, drink, and sleep, all in the factory.

It's hard to imagine that in 2022, the phrase "behind closed doors" suddenly has a new interpretation. After a three-week lockdown, Shanghai has finally opened up some key enterprises to resume work under certain conditions and the conditions are quite stringent, which the Chinese authorities call "closed-loop production."

As we all know, Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory is Tesla’s most important production base and an important company in Shanghai. Employees come from all over the world. Start this behemoth will inevitably bring huge commuter traffic. For the pandemic prevention work aimed at "dynamic zero-COVID," that is absolutely impossible to allow. 

Therefore, the Shanghai Municipal Government proposed the concept of "closed-loop production," which simply means that employees should "consider the factory their home." Basically, those who apply for resumption of work will not be able to leave after entering the doors of Tesla's Shanghai factory.

According to local sources, every Tesla employee who applies for resumption of work will be given a sleeping bag, a blanket, and three meals a day. The employees will spend the night on the floor in the factory while the bathroom and entertainment areas are still under construction. In addition, Tesla will give all employees involved in the closed-loop a daily allowance of about 400 yuan and the actual amount will be adjusted according to position.

However, there are conditions for returning to work. Employees must live in a "low-risk residential area" designated by the Shanghai government and receive two doses of the vaccine before entering the factory. Tesla has also arranged a shuttle to deliver employees to the factory. The actual number of employees who can enter the factory will be adjusted in accordance with the pandemic prevention regulations of the Shanghai government. When risk is gradually reduced, more employees can be accepted into the factory to work. .

According to reports, there are currently about 400 employees in the Shanghai plant maintaining daily operations. Before May 1, Tesla must maintain "closed-loop production." It is estimated that a total of 8,000 employees will join this resumption of work, making the factory their home.

Although going to work in a factory is a good solution for many employees to make ends meet, it is not an easy job.

According to an internal memo, employees in closed-loop production will have to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, with only one day off. Even so, it is far from the super-capacity of the original Shanghai plant. Before the closure of the city, Tesla’s Shanghai plant was in production on a three-shift basis all year round and employees were “working four days on and two days off.” It is not easy to catch up with production.

Another interesting tidbit is that when preparing to resume work, what Tesla lacks the most is not the chips, cables, or batteries that other carmakers are worried about, but bottled drinking water. Chinese netizens witnessed yesterday that a large number of Tesla employees were all carrying bottled water at the gate of the factory just to meet the needs of the employees in the factory. As for meals, it is another big project.

(Image: Tesla)