<story><title>Tesla aims to start pilot production of Model 3 cars on February 20</title><url>http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-model-idUSKBN15N2W7</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aresant</author><text>This is good news.&lt;p&gt;Musks target of 500,000+ cars a year of velocity in 2018 is an insane goal!&lt;p&gt;By the numbers:&lt;p&gt;- They have just shy of 400,000 of the 3&amp;#x27;s on deposit, along with a backlog of other models.&lt;p&gt;- Last year Tesla shipped about 76,000 cars.&lt;p&gt;- Their Q4 delivery numbers were &amp;lt;25,000 cars and trailed expectations by about 5%.&lt;p&gt;- They blamed last quarter on autopilot hardware issues, eg OEM supplier &amp;#x2F; component issues.&lt;p&gt;- They made a significant uptick in velocity between Q2 (14,000 cars) and Q4 (22,200 cars).&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t imagine how hard Tesla is pushing - for any Tesla HN&amp;#x27;s good luck! We are rooting for you :)&lt;p&gt;If, somehow, Musk reverses the chronic lateness and hits 500,000 in 2018 it&amp;#x27;s going to be quite the fireworks show.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-01-03&amp;#x2F;tesla-falls-as-quarterly-deliveries-trail-analysts-estimates&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-01-03&amp;#x2F;tesla-fal...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Animats</author><text>When he first announced that goal, his two top production people quit.[1]  Now he has a guy from Audi heading up production.&lt;p&gt;Auto production lines usually produce about a car a minute.  500,000 cars a year is about two production lines running two shifts.  In 2005, the NUMMI plant, which is where Tesla is now, produced 400,000 cars with 4,700 employees. Tesla is talking about reaching 9,300 employees.  They do more than final assembly there, but still, that&amp;#x27;s a high headcount for an auto plant. Ford&amp;#x27;s Kentucky truck plant also produces about 400,000 units a year with about 4,500 employees.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.autonews.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;20160504&amp;#x2F;OEM02&amp;#x2F;160509943&amp;#x2F;2-top-tesla-manufacturing-execs-to-leave-as-biggest-challenge-looms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.autonews.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;20160504&amp;#x2F;OEM02&amp;#x2F;160509943&amp;#x2F;2-t...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Tesla aims to start pilot production of Model 3 cars on February 20</title><url>http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-model-idUSKBN15N2W7</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aresant</author><text>This is good news.&lt;p&gt;Musks target of 500,000+ cars a year of velocity in 2018 is an insane goal!&lt;p&gt;By the numbers:&lt;p&gt;- They have just shy of 400,000 of the 3&amp;#x27;s on deposit, along with a backlog of other models.&lt;p&gt;- Last year Tesla shipped about 76,000 cars.&lt;p&gt;- Their Q4 delivery numbers were &amp;lt;25,000 cars and trailed expectations by about 5%.&lt;p&gt;- They blamed last quarter on autopilot hardware issues, eg OEM supplier &amp;#x2F; component issues.&lt;p&gt;- They made a significant uptick in velocity between Q2 (14,000 cars) and Q4 (22,200 cars).&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t imagine how hard Tesla is pushing - for any Tesla HN&amp;#x27;s good luck! We are rooting for you :)&lt;p&gt;If, somehow, Musk reverses the chronic lateness and hits 500,000 in 2018 it&amp;#x27;s going to be quite the fireworks show.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-01-03&amp;#x2F;tesla-falls-as-quarterly-deliveries-trail-analysts-estimates&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-01-03&amp;#x2F;tesla-fal...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chemmail</author><text>That number is insane, they work with many 3rd party suppliers and any one of those have issues can cause delays for any number of thousand reasons. Tesla also needs to expand their tech support&amp;#x2F;repair by many folds. Working on cars and computers, any issues is going to take a good amount of time to fix, not even thinking of backlogs. It helps that they literally only have 3 cars, meaning 3 sets of parts to inventory one whatever needs to break, but still the stories of how they handle repair is really amateur.</text></comment>