Tesla Misses Production Goal Yet Again - Has Delivered Only 8,810 Out 500,000 Model 3s Ordered

" A sizable chunk of those — 2,020 — came in the final week of the quarter, a figure that backs up recent reports that the company hurried to increase production to meet Musk’s target. Employees who work on the company’s other cars were reportedly asked in a recent internal memo to help increase production of the Model 3, which would help “prove a bunch of haters wrong.”

The big question is will this hurried production lead to quality problems down the road? Despite the recent increase in production, Tesla is still 6 months behind its original goal of making 5,000 Model 3s per week, assuming it can ramp up to 5,000 units per week by the end of June.

Now that TESLA is no longer the darling of Wall Street - they will have problems with their financials - including service of debt coming in the last quarter of this year - and Wall Street is not likely to look kindly on another round of financing.

Now - add in that other manufacturers creep ever closer to producing competing products to Tesla - maybe with even more advanced technology - and those manufacturers have knowledge of high volume production that Tesla clearly does not. The window of opportunity is closing in on Tesla - and as long as they are planning NOT TO PRODUCE the entry level Model 3 until later this summer - the people with reservations will start to drop off.

IF Tesla does not start producing at about 4,000 cars a week by the end of Summer - my money will not be on them to survive long after.

They missed the target by 20%, 2,020 cars vs. 2,500 in the last week of Q1. Not great, really wish they hit the target. They are keeping the forecast at 5,000 cars per week by the end of Q2 and lowered the target from 10k/week to 8k/week by the end of 2018.

They are planning to make another 2,000 this week based on the letter, so hopefully it was not just a one-week rush. Also, they are not planning to do another cash raise in 2018. Bankruptcy is unlikely anytime soon.

I agree without the additional capital raise, bankruptcy is not on the immediate horizon. What should be concerning is that although Tesla only missed it's Model 3 production target by 480 units, it had to hurry production just to reach the 2,020 figure. The timing of this hurried production news is not great either considering last week Tesla announced it was recalling 123,000 Model S vehicles for faulty steering. Will a large portion of the Model 3s that were hurried have to be recalled?

What about when Audi and Porsche arrive in the all-EV segment this year? Will Tesla reach its Model 3 production target? What impact will increased competition have on Model S and Model X sales?

There are a lot of issues Tesla is clearly facing, not to mention the potential of increased regulation on its autonomous features due to the drive who was killed last week in a Model X that had autopilot enabled.

I like how everyone who drinks the kool-aid just sees this as a 20% miss in production goal. If he had continued doing business as usual with the S & X production continuing, that number would have been much worse. So the S & X production were cut so they could try to look less incompetent on their quarterly report.

I don't want to see the company fail, I think the push they have given the rest of the automotive industry is great for the consumer. However, they need to stop being unrealistic with goals, stop lying to the public and investors, and start taking real advice and follow other proven methods of production. Musk is so smug and narcissistic that he thinks he knows how to produce cars better than other manufacturers doing it for over 100 years. He skipped all the normal testing procedures to get the molds and forms done properly, tweek the assembly line, and get his vendors the necessary information so their forms and production could be ready. He has rushed everything on every vehicle, and it shows. Poor quality all over those cars that takes years to fix and make right. Body lines that wouldn't be acceptable on a 1988 Hyundai excel, much less $150k Model X and the rest. Everything Musk says is a smug lie and slap to the face, but the idiots blindly support him. He is hiding something, whether it's the truth in financials, the production, the truth behind their black box info or all of the above, but he's definitely not a trustworthy person.

Mobile service, you schedule a day/time and someone in a service car comes to replace the bolt at your house or in the parking lot at work. It's a 40min job and completely effortless for the customer (you can even remotely unlock your car when they call you from the parking lot). My Takata airbag was replaced this way, it was really convenient.

Also if the bolt fails, you can still steer. I'm estimating it will cost them about $10M to replace all the bolts, really not that big of a deal either to Tesla or customers. I think the Toyota engine replacements will cost them more even though only a couple thousand cars are effected.

Tesla sacrificed production of the S and the X to build more 3s. It's going to kill their Q1 numbers. Expect a GAAP loss of around $900 million. Funny thing is building more cars (especially the 3) is worse for them than building less cars. The more they build the more they lose.

BK may be avoidable, but the combination of incredibly high interest expense, rising cobalt prices, changes to 2018 GAAP, etc. is going to cripple them permanently. If they somehow manage to survive they will never be more than a niche player.

There should be a gross margin on the 3 at 2k/week. We'll see next month what the gross margin breakout is. However, the current line was designed for 5k cars a week, anything less than that is wasted resources. The sooner they get to that number the better.