The Model 3 is a very important car for Tesla. It’s the company’s first mass-market electric car that’s actually affordable enough for the average buyer to consider going electric. However, the company has been facing problems in mass producing the Model 3. The associated supply chain and production issues have led Tesla to post a loss of $671 million in the third quarter of this year, one of its highest quarterly losses ever.
There are more than 500,000 pre-orders for the Model 3 and Tesla will certainly want to fill them as soon as possible. That seems to be a difficult proposition for the company at this point in time given that it only managed to produce 220 units of the Model 3 during the third quarter. Its original target was for 1,500 units.
Tesla has blamed the delay on its highly automated production systems that are taking longer than expected to run flawlessly. The production delays have impacted Tesla’s targets for the Model 3. The company previously expected to produce 20,000 units of the Model 3 in December this year. It now expects to hit that figure by the end of the first quarter of 2018.
“Bringing this level of automation online is simply challenging in the early stages of the ramp,” the company said in an SEC filing, adding that it continues to make progress to resolve these bottlenecks. Tesla has reiterated that there are no fundamental problems with its supply chain or any of its production processes.
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