Tesla is temporarily not making Model 3 cars to be able to significantly increase production
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said in an email to carmaker employees that the temporary pause in Model 3 car production is related to preparations to significantly expand production capacity.
Musk says in the email, published by website Electrek, among others, that there will be a pause in production of the Model 3 for three to five days, so that an extensive number of upgrades can be made. According to him, these upgrades will make it possible to reach a weekly production number of 3,000 to 4,000 cars in May.
Ultimately, Musk wants 6,000 Model 3s to roll off the production line by the end of June. To make this possible, new upgrades will be made at the end of May, so that the production capacity is further increased. Musk does not specifically discuss the upgrades, but he does say that the target of 6,000 can only be achieved if suppliers can supply a larger number of parts. If they don’t make it, Musk says they need to come up with a good explanation.
The Fremont factory must also run 24 hours a day to accommodate the number of 6,000 Model 3s per week. In addition, more employees are deployed to assemble the car. Tesla will hire about 400 new employees per week in the coming weeks.
However, the target number of six thousand cars per week is not a hard requirement; Musk anticipates that the production number will reach 5,000 at the end of June, as he assumes a margin of error and possible delivery problems with the necessary parts. The CEO expects that a stable production number of six thousand cars per week will only be achieved a few months after June.
On Monday it became clear that the production of the Model 3 would be temporarily suspended to improve automation. Musk recently said that the Model 3 used too many robots. According to him, this is partly the cause of the production problems of the Model 3. The manufacturer has more than once failed to achieve the target numbers. Earlier, the Tesla CEO said that this also has to do with battery problems. In addition, the fact that the Model 3, unlike the Model X and S, consists of a relatively large amount of steel, may also play a role. As a result, more welding is required.