Tesla’s Model 3 production line has shut down for four to five days, according to a report from Buzzfeed.
A Tesla spokesperson said the assembly line is stopped to “improve automation.” According to Buzzfeed:
The announcement of the four- to five-day production pause for Model 3 came without warning, according to Tesla employees who spoke with BuzzFeed News. During the pause, workers are expected to use vacation days or stay home without pay; a small number of workers may be offered paid work elsewhere in the factory.
Tesla had a similar pause of production in February. At the time, the company said the Model 3 production plan includes periods of planned downtime in both the Fremont factory and Gigafactory 1 to improve automation and systematically address bottlenecks in order to increase production rates. “This is not unusual and is in fact common in production ramps like this,” the company told Bloomberg.
The latest pause comes just days after CEO Elon Musk told CBS that he has a “clear understanding of the path out of [production] hell.”
Tesla’s current goal is to manufacture 5,000 cars per week by the end of the second quarter, which was originally the year-end goal for 2017. The company said two weeks ago that it had achieved a production level of 2,000 Model 3s per week.