Elon Musk pushes for 7,000 Tesla Model 3s a week by end November

Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk is determined to come good on his goal to produce 7,000 Model 3s a week, issuing an email last week that says to do so, the entire production line must be capable of outputting 50 units per hour.

Hitting that rate of production would allow Tesla’s Fremont factory to achieve 1,000 Model 3s a day, Musk said in the letter, which was issued to employees, according to Electrek.

“By the 28th, all Model 3 production subsystems need to be at 50+ UPH steady, which is what’s needed for a true 1000 vehicles per day rate (taking equipment uptime into account),” Musk wrote.

“To be clear, this includes all lines for a particular subsystem, so, for example, general assembly UPH would include both GA3 lines plus GA4.”

He also told employees that he would walk the entire line on November 27-28, and said that if they wanted to, staff could approach him personally to share details of blockages that could stop Tesla from reaching the production milestone.

It’s “extremely important for [Tesla’s] prosperity,” he wrote.

Musk has previously said at the third quarter earnings call on October 24, 2018 that he believed Tesla could achieve 7,000 Model 3s a week with minimal capital expenditure, and that the focus really just needed to be on improving the uptime of existing lines.

By improving efficiency of the production line, Musk also said that Tesla would be a step closer to achieving its goal of bringing a  Model 3 onto market that is actually priced at $US35,000 ($A48,000) – without the financial and fuel cost savings incentives required to bring the current mid-range model into that price range.

Bloomberg’s Model 3 Tracker estimates that since the end of September 2018, 30,604 Model 3s have been built – that’s around 4,372 a week – suggesting that Tesla still has some work to do to achieve the 7,000 a week goal.

Musk remains determined: he has also tweeted that in order for Tesla to deliver all Model 3s bought by the end of this month before the end of the year, “Tesla just acquired trucking capacity.”