Tesla missed its Model 3 production target...but investors are still relieved
Investors are dumb to be relieved. They are fudging the numbers.
From the article:
So they say they made 2,020 Model 3s in the final week of the quarter. So how many did they make for the whole quarter? 8,180. There's 13 weeks in a quarter so they averaged 630 per week. I think they must have held back some of the production from previous weeks so that they could get over 2000 in that final week.Tesla: First quarter production up 40% from Q4
Tesla: First quarter production up 40% from Q4
18 Hours Ago | 03:44
Tesla missed its quarterly target for producing its hot Model 3 cars, but investors still breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday that the numbers weren't more disappointing. During the last week of the quarter, the electric-car maker produced 2,020 Model 3s, coming up short of its goal to produce 2,500 Model 3 sedans a week.
For Tesla, ‘Production Hell’ Looks Like the Reality of the Car Business
Anyway, the share price did rise over 5% on the news, even though it is dubious. If they are truly producing over 2000 per week now, then at a minimum they should produce about 26,000 in Q2, but more than that if they want to reach their goal of 5000 per week by the end of the quarter.Mr. Musk once envisioned producing as many as 500,000 cars this year, and last summer he was hoping to be able to make 20,000 Model 3s a month by December. More recently, Tesla had aimed to produce at least 2,500 Model 3s per week by the end of the first quarter.
But that is more than it managed in the entire fourth quarter, and it has produced fewer than 10,000 in the first quarter, the company said Tuesday.
There have been signs of momentum, however. In the past seven days, Tesla said, it had produced 2,020 Model 3s, a rate it said it expected to sustain in the coming week.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla said it expected its output to “climb rapidly” through the second quarter and reach 5,000 per week in about three months. It added that it was “rapidly addressing production and supply-chain bottlenecks, including several short factory shutdowns to upgrade equipment.”
Tesla has closely guarded the details of its manufacturing system, but Mr. Musk has described it as highly automated.