A total of 60 companies in Anting town, Shanghai's Jiading district, have been selected for the first whitelist of companies returning to work and production, with Nio among the list.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

About 25 percent of the employees at Nio's (NYSE: NIO, HKG: 9866) technology research center in Shanghai's Jiading district returned amid ongoing Covid controls, local media Knews reported today, adding that the importance of working on-site at the lab is clear for the development of smart cars.

A total of 60 companies in Anting town, Shanghai's Jiading district, have been selected for the first whitelist of companies returning to work and production, the vast majority of which are core companies in the automotive industry chain, with Nio also on the list, according to the report.

Employees returning to work will be managed in the park in a closed environment, and Anting town provides them with regular Covid tests, the report said.

The start of the research center's resumption of work will help the capacity of Nio's factory in Hefei to climb, the report said, citing the company's vice president of hardware, Bai Jian.

Orders for the Nio ET7 are growing rapidly, and users want to pick up their cars soon, he added.

The Shanghai government announced in the evening of March 27 that the city would enter a phased lockdown to control Covid.

The areas east of the Huangpu River, where Tesla's Shanghai plant is located, were put into lockdown starting at 5:00 on March 28.

The western part of the Huangpu River, where Nio's global headquarters is located, went into lockdown from 3:00 on April 1.

The whole of Shanghai is still under lockdown, and it is unclear when the measure will be lifted.

China had 2,666 new confirmed cases of Covid and 17,528 new asymptomatic infections on Sunday, according to health authorities. Among them, 2,472 new confirmed cases and 16,983 asymptomatic infections were reported in Shanghai.

Shanghai's Songjiang district said today that it had 166 new confirmed cases and 382 new asymptomatic infections on April 24, all of which were found in quarantine control areas.

This is the first time since the current round of Covid outbreak in Shanghai that Songjiang district has seen a clearing of cases in non-control areas.

Chinese state media Xinhua highlights NIO's production resumption