Tesla unwraps new, no-frills assembly line

Electric car manufacturer Tesla Inc. has set up an additional, no-frills production line to churn out vehicles, according to Chief Executive Elon Musk.

Musk tweeted a photo Saturday of a general assembly line that he said was built in three weeks with “minimal resources.” The photo shows a Model 3 rolling off the line in what appears to be a temporary tent-like structure. Musk described the car as the first dual-motor performance Model 3.

The dual-motor, all-wheel-drive performance vehicle is a faster and more powerful version of the mass-market Model 3. It will also be more expensive — the sticker price of a dual-motor Model 3 is $78,000, compared with the $35,000 price tag for the base model.

Tesla has been beset by manufacturing problems, including the use of cutting-edge robotics that ended up slowing production rather than speeding it up. Musk said this month that Tesla had worked through many of the issues.

Tesla makes its vehicles at a factory in Fremont, Calif. The company confirmed that the new assembly line is in Fremont, but it declined to answer questions about its production capacity, whether any additional lines similar to the new one would be opened and whether the new line would be used solely to manufacture Model 3 vehicles.

Last week, the Palo Alto-based automaker said it was cutting about 9% of its workforce — about 3,600 mostly white-collar employees — in an attempt to become profitable. Musk said at the time that the job cuts would not hurt Tesla’s ability to meet its production goals.