Tesla Model 3 production is ramping up at high speed. A new series of Twitter posts from an employee suggests the company is hitting battery production rates of 5,000 per week, placing it in good standing to reach its goal of reaching a sustained rate of 5,000 cars per week by the end of the month. The goal is crucial for showing that Tesla is boosting production fast enough.
In a series of now-deleted tweets spotted by Electrek, lead material flow for the Tesla Model 3 at Gigafactory 1 John Totah write that “our goal for March was 2,500/wk and we didn’t hit it. Now we just hit 5,000/wk throughput in June. Insanely hard work by Tesla team.” He later wrote “We want to sustain over 5k/wk since current capacity of the lines are built for a max 6k/wk. It was incredibly difficult to hit 2500 in March. We revised many processes and built new systems that worked better. Incredible work and brain power.”
Although batteries are just one part of the equation, it’s a strong sign that Tesla is boosting capacity where it matters. The company built a fourth general assembly line in just two weeks to reach these goals, with a makeshift tent adding extra capacity by pouring concrete and using existing scrap. Musk told employees in an email earlier this month that while the company was on track to hit 700 cars per day soon, the battery production module zone four at the Gigafactory was a key area for “radical improvements.”
Tesla has worked hard to bring its cheapest-ever car up to production speed, following the start of production in July last year. Just under half a million customers had placed a $1,000 deposit for the vehicle when production began, which Tesla needs to turn into cars starting from $35,000 to bring in funds to fuel its rapid expansion. Tesla initially predicted a production rate of 20,000 per month by December, but it ultimately produced just 2,425 cars in the entire quarter.
Musk hinted that the next delivery report, scheduled for release in two weeks, will “explode” Wall Street short seller positions that are betting Tesla can’t achieve its lofty goals.
The pressure is on to prove the doubters wrong.
