“New Tesla factories losing billions of dollars”, Musk says

Elon Musk says Tesla’s new factories in Germany and the US are “losing billions of dollars” due to battery shortages and supply disruptions in China.
The multi-billionaire also called the plants in Berlin and Austin, Texas “gigantic money furnaces”.
Covid-19 lockdowns in China this year, including in Shanghai where Tesla has a huge factory, have made it increasingly difficult for manufacturers to operate.

“Both Berlin and Austin factories are gigantic money furnaces right now. It’s really like a giant roaring sound, which is the sound of money on fire,” said Mr. Musk.

The plants are “losing billions of dollars right now. There’s a ton of expense and hardly any output,” he added in an interview. Tesla’s site in Austin currently produces a “tiny” number of cars, partly because some components for its batteries were “stuck” at a Chinese port “with no one to actually move it”, he said.

The previous week, Tesla raised the price of its whole range of cars in the US by almost 5%.
This week, Mr. Elon Musk said Tesla planned to shed 3.5% of its global workforce after earlier saying that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy.