Tesla Prepares Model 3 Production Goal of 10,000 Cars Per Week

Having reached the production goal of 5,000 Model 3 per week, Tesla-CEO Musk is already aiming at reaching 10,000 vehicles per week. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek Musk talks about production hell and his nights on a couch or under a desk at the factory in Fremont.

Musk stated that he ‘wanted to feel more pain than his coworkers,’ to show them that he is behind them. He pointed out the special elevators for GM managers, who could just skip past their employees as a sign for aloofness. He also wore the same clothing for five days, not having time to change. The credibility of the entire company was at stake, according to Musk.

Musk expects that the company will soon leave production hell, but they are still in with one leg. The production shall now rampup in the next 12 months to 10,000 vehicles per week. The last increase by a factor two happened within three months. End of June 2018 Tesla has manufactured 41,000 Model 3, this after only one year of production. To put that into comparison: GM managed to produce after 9 months only 1,000 Chevrolet Bolt.

Per car Tesla requires 90 hours of work, while Toyota does the same in only 30 hours. Currently there are 420,000 pre-orders for the Model 3, and next year, when the international expansion starts, a new boost in pre-orders is expected.

It’s also interesting to look at the company evaluation per vehicle produced. Tesla’s market cap reaches 534,100 dollars per vehicle, Daimler 21,600 and BMW 24,000 dollars. Those figures are a sign of how much shareholders see Tesla as a game changer.

If Musk succeeds to leave production hell with Tesla, then the company has single-handedly done more for the switch from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources than any other company before them.

This article has also been published in German.