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If you had any doubts that being one of the richest men in the world as well as achieving living meme status makes you immune to global resource shortages, maybe this next story will change your mind. Tesla Inc’s Shanghai mega factory recently announced it was expecting to have manufactured a whopping 300,000 electric vehicles over the course of this year so far.
The factory made this announcement the same week rivals like General Motors and Ford announced they’ve had to suspend production of their fleet of vehicles, citing a lack of chips vital for every function of a modern car. As per a report from the China Passenger Car Association, the facility managed to crank out 240,000 examples of the Model 3 economy car and the Model Y crossover SUV during its first three months of operation.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s frontman Elon Musk attended an Italian technology conference which was broadcasted online on the 25th of September. At the conference, Musk made comments insinuating that the global chip shortage was a strictly short-term issue.
“There’s a lot of chip fabrication plants that are being built, and I think we will have good capacity by next year,” Musk said at the Italian tech event, seemingly confident in his factory’s ability to meet demand in spite of a crisis that has the industry in a stranglehold.
In spite of Musk’s claims, technology giants like Intel have noted that most of their new chip foundries and manufacturing facilities will not be completed for at least a few more years, making Musk’s claims dubious at best.
Sources from within the Shanghai factory estimate the total yearly output for the plant at somewhere in the 450,000 vehicle range, with most of that rolling stock slated for sale within the Chinese market. Only time will tell if Elon Musk’s grand plan will indeed rise above a predicament that the rest of the industry had largely been powerless to stop.
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