Tesla hits Model 3 target, focus on sustainability
Tesla Inc. reached a milestone critical to Elon Musk’s goal to bring electric cars to the masses—and earn some profit in the process—by finally exceeding a longsought production target with the Model 3.
By building more than
5,000 of the sedans in the last week of the second quarter, Tesla “just became a real car company,” the chief executive officer said in an internal email Sunday obtained by Bloomberg News.
He may turn out to be right, if Tesla can hit these manufacturing goals again and again. After all, producing 5,000 units of one vehicle in a week is far from unheard of in the auto industry, and the company had to pull out all the stops to get to this point, including constructing a tent and makeshift assembly line next to its factory. What Musk still needs to prove is that this level of output can endure.
“Now that Tesla has achieved the 5,000 mark, it needs to do so on a steady, routine basis and with excellent quality,” said Michelle Krebs, an analyst with carshopping site Autotrader.
Tesla rose 4.6% in pre-market trading, pushing gains this year to more than 10%.
Hitting the 5,000-a-week target is a major achievement for Musk, who first revealed the Model 3 in late 2016. It’s also a relief for customers who have waited for their cars for more than two years. Their patience has been tested by a series of setbacks that forced Tesla to push back the goal from an earlier plan to reach this level of production by the end of 2017.
The 47-year-old Musk said he celebrated his birthday earlier this week at the factory, where he had been posting photographs of drive units and the paint shop to his social media accounts.
“We did it!!” Musk proclaimed in the email to employees Sunday. “We either found a way or, by will and inventiveness, created entirely new solutions that were thought impossible. Intense in tents. Transporting entire production lines across the world in massive cargo planes. Whatever. It worked.”
Musk wrote that, not only did Tesla “factory gate” more than 5,000 Model 3s, it may make 6,000 Model 3s a week next month. Including Model S and X production, the company had a “7000 vehicle week,” he wrote.
SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON: