Ambitious, but rubbish.
There’s a certain caution and reservation that is exercised in the motoring industry, particularly around hotly anticipated models where there’s a very real risk of demand outstripping supply. We’ve seen that happen with Volkswagen and its new T-Roc compact crossover, which caught the usually-unflappable German firm so unaware that its introduction to our market has been taken off this years’ calendar so that the company can focus on fulfilling demand in more critical markets.
Tesla, being a relatively-new company and armed with all the self-assuredness of a tech firm, doesn’t exercise that same caution and reservation. With over 400,000 bookings of its compact (and relatively accessible) Model 3, Tesla boss Elon Musk claimed that they would be able to produce and deliver as many as 1,000 cars a week by the end of 2017, and be able to deliver 4,100 cars in the last quarter of the year.
Instead, it delivered 1,550. Naturally, they’re now pushing back their targets. Again.
By the end of Q1 this year, Tesla expects to be able to produce 2500 Model 3s a week, half of its intended target within that timeframe. However, the following quarter should (hopefully) see Tesla hit its 5,000/week target, though that’s still only a small way to fulfilling the enormous back orders. These numbers were published by Reuters.
Musk claims that the “production bottlenecks” that have plagued production of the Model 3 are being handled, though they continue to hold the company back from fulfilling its intended production targets. However, Tesla did say that in the last week of 2017, the company managed to hit a production rate that equalled 1,000 Model 3 saloons a week.
Just 220 Model 3s were delivered last year, falling far short of the 1500 that the company had intended to deliver before the end of 2017. It’s not all bad news though, as the 15,200 Model S saloons and 13,120 Model X crossovers that were delivered in 2017 contributed to a total number of 29,870 cars delivered, in line with industry projections for the firm.
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