IT’S GOT A CAR IN SPACE – BUT TESLA LOSES £6m A DAY

AFTER launching the world’s most powerful rocket into space, Earthbound production issues might have seemed small-time to Elon Musk.

But the billionaire boss of Tesla yesterday asked investors to be patient as he irons out delays which plague factories making its new Model 3 car, as it racked up losses of £5.7m a day.

It remains far off its target of producing 5,000 vehicles per week, delivering just over 1,500 in the final three months of 2017, bringing total losses for the quarter to £481m.

The day after another Musk company, SpaceX, sent his Tesla Roadster into space, the 46-year-old said he was confident its problems would be fixed. ‘I hope people think that if we can send a Roadster to the asteroid belt, we can probably solve Model 3 production,’ he told analysts. ‘It’s just a matter of time.’

Since the Model 3’s launch last summer, production has been hit by setbacks. It is supposed to be Tesla’s first mass-market electric car, but although more than 500,000 have been reserved, Tesla has struggled to meet its ambitious production aims.