Tesla has finally confirmed that it will follow the orders of the California authorities, and will close a large part of the factory due to the coronavirus, reducing to a quarter the number of people who visit the facility every day. Also, Elon Musk himself has confirmed that Tesla will adapt part of the production lines for how other companies are doing, manufacturing medical equipment that helps fight the virus.
The Gigafactory will drastically reduce the number of employees who come to the Freemont facility, which will go from 10,000 to 2,500. Something that, according to some experts, will not allow keeping the production lines running, and only finish off the units that are in the final phase of production.
With production halting just around the corner, Elon Musk himself has indicated that the automaker could launch a production line for hospital respirators. A fundamental element in this phase of growth of the Covid19, that in some places like Italy, has already begun to be insufficient to care for all patients, which is causing deaths.
A situation that according to some media such as the New York Times is already beginning to happen in the United States, and that despite the fact that we are still in an initial phase of the coronavirus expansion curve. Something that will undoubtedly make it necessary for many industries to temporarily change their activity towards others much more essential at the moment.