Thursday, 02 November 2017

Tesla model 3 delayed

Bloomberg reports that production of Tesla's new Model 3 has been delayed by three months until March 2018. 'I have to tell you I was really depressed about three or four weeks ago,' chief executive officer Elon Musk said on Wednesday. Although disappointed with the setback, Elon said 'this is a relatively small shift.;

The announcement meant a drop in Tesla shares and confirmed to sceptics that Tesla will be unable to fulfill its promise to mass produce a car with a start price of $35,000.

'We left the call frustrated with the lack of transparency from Tesla management,' Jeffrey Osborne, a Cowen & Co. analyst who recommends selling the shares, wrote in a note to clients. 'Elon Musk needs to stop over promising and under delivering and the board should rein in a CEO who publicly shares his aspirational goals that have rarely been hit.'

The main obstacle that Tesla is tryig to overcome is been at the gigafactory in Nevada where the battery cells are packaged with Elon blaming himself for choosing the wrong subcontractor resulting in software having to be rewritten as well as one area of the plant having to be redone.

Elon has previously committed to manufacturing 10,000 Model 3 cars per week in 2018 but more recently he has been reticent in confirming this promise.

The more expensive Model S sedan and Model X crossover are on target for around 100,000 deliveries in 2017, an increase of more than 30% from 2016, but this output will fall in Q4 with workers moving to Model 3 assembly lines.

Elon said 'Now, I can see sort of a clear path to sunshine. It's very obvious what we need to do. It's just a matter of work to get there.'