Tesla is about to ramp up production of the Model 3 sedan according to an email obtained by Jalopnik. The company shut down the sedan’s production line this week, but this email says the line will soon be running and a third shift will be added allowing the sedan to be built around the clock. Tesla is aiming to produce 6,000 Model 3 sedans per week by June.
The email, reportedly penned by Elon Musk, details a wide-range of topics including Model 3 production, financial expenditures, manufacturing tolerances, Tesla’s lack of financial profit, and how meetings can kill a company.
According to this note, the Model 3 line will be down for three to five days “to do a comprehensive set of upgrades.” It states that this will allow Tesla to ramp up production to 3000 to 4000 Model 3 sedans by next month. Then, the company plans to implement another set of upgrades to allow for 6000 by the end of June. Last week, according to this email, Tesla completed its third consecutive week of making over 2000 Model 3s.
It’s a tall order to expect production to triple in two months.
To help meet this expectation, Tesla is adding another shift to general assembly, body and paint at its Freemont facility. Between Freemont and its Gigafactory, Tesla is looking to 400 additional employees to help meet the production schedule.
This news about increasing production comes amid questions about safety and work conditions in Tesla’s facility. Though Tesla fiercely pushes back against the news, the questions will likely continue as workers fight to meet Musk’s lofty production expectation.
Musk is apparently looking to rein in expenditures, too, noting that anything costing more than a million dollars requires his direct approval. Maybe he will accept that couch fans raised money for.
Jalopnik published the email in its entirety and the bit at the end about meetings is worth reading. This is just part of it: “Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.”
