Affected By The COVID-19 Pandemic, China's Nio Electric Car Factory Stops Operation

An electric car (EV) Nio is seen at the Auto Shanghai exhibition in Shanghai, China, April 19, 2021. (ANTARA/Reuters/Aly Song/as)

JAKARTA - The Chinese electric car manufacturer, Nio, stopped operating after distribution to several cities in the world's most populous country was halted due to the prolonged COVID-19 outbreak.

"Due to the pandemic, since last March, one by one supplier company partners in several cities in Jilin, Shanghai, and Jiangsu have suspended their operations", Nio said in a statement, Saturday, April 9 reported by Antara.

Nio will be suspending deliveries of its electric vehicles to customers and will be working hard with distributors to quickly address the stalled deliveries.

In the first quarter of this year, Nio sold 25,768 electric cars in China, up 29 percent over the same period last year.

Nio's operations are based in Shanghai, the center of China's largest electric vehicle industry with total production reaching 18,200 units during the first quarter of 2022, according to the Autohome news website.

China's richest city has seen its worst spike in COVID-19 cases since March. On Saturday, positive cases increased by 1,015, and asymptomatic cases were recorded at 22,609.

Local authorities on the same day launched the construction of a temporary hospital that can accommodate 50,000 beds to cope with the surge in the COVID-19 variant of the Omicron variant.