Tesla Motors Is Moving Up Production Schedule For Model 3

[Babyfacemagee]

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk gave an update on the Model 3 during yesterday's earnings call of the company and he had some surprises in store.  With 400,000 pre-orders and counting for the Model 3 the company had originally planned on moving production volume from the roughly 50,000 per year today for the Models S and X to 500,000 by 2020.  With so many pre-orders for the Model 3 however he is pushing the company's schedule to the limit and his new goal is to pump  out 100,000 vehicles by the end of next year, 2017 and 500,000 per year by 2018...two full years faster than his previous benchmark.  He views this challenge as so important that he's moved his desk to be positioned at the end of the assembly line at the factory at Fremont, California and even has a sleeping bag stashed on the premises for those late night sessions he might have to pull to problem solve. 

This is an extraordinarily aggressive goal and will force the company to deal with the myriad of problems that all large automakers face such as supply line and component availability issues plus some new ones, such as the need to finish Tesla's Gigafactory which will be supplying the batteries for all those vehicles.  In addition the company will need cash...it's still to be seen how they go about that, although it shouldn't be hard to convince investors or lenders now that he's got a 400,000 car line of waiting orders.  It is Elon Musk's stated goal to change the world and make EV's (electric vehicles) the norm rather than the exception.  Can he do it?  It seems we'll be finding out sooner than later but it would be hard to bet against the man that has been called the real-world inspiration for the 'Iron Man' movies.