Leaked Tesla Email: Elon Musk Hopes 2020 Production Will Exceed 500,000 EVs
8 Oct 2020, 11:54 UTC ·
by Mircea Panait
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As with any public company, Tesla is under pressure from stockholders to perform. Not on the track, not in terms of customer satisfaction, but Elon Musk’s automaker has to sell as many cars as possible to keep the investors happy.
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The worldwide health crisis had posed and still poses a problem to many, but Tesla appears to be weathering the storm better than the competition. For example, a new record has been set in the third quarter of 2020 with almost 145,000 vehicles produced, most of them consisting of the Model 3 and Model Y.
Q2 production numbers more than 82,000 vehicles while the first quarter of the year accounted for a little more than 102k. Add up the numbers, and you’ll understand why Elon Musk is wishful thinking in the following statement.
“It will be tough but super exciting if we can exceed 500,000 cars made in a single year for the first time in Tesla history,” said the big kahuna in a leaked email to employees. “It all comes down to Q4. Please take whatever steps you can think of to improve output (while increasing quality),” concluded Musk.
Electrek’s take on this ambitious but improbable target is pretty obvious. Instead of increasing production by 20 percent, the cited publication wishes for Tesla to focus on “quality before volume.” Unfortunately for us, QA and QC are not as important as output for the previously mentioned investors.
It would be cheeky to expect Mercedes-Benz levels of quality from the Palo Alto-based automaker, no doubt about that. But then again, losing the glass roof of a Model Y on the highway in less than two hours of ownership doesn’t sit well with anyone willing to pony up more than $50k for the electric crossover.
TSLA was trading at $420 before the email leaked onto the Internet. After spiking to $429 per share in a matter of hours, the stock is currently sitting at $425.
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