Energy

The Media Is Tracking Tesla’s Model 3 Production, And It’s Pretty Sad

REUTERS/Joe Skipper

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Tim Pearce Energy Reporter
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Bloomberg has launched an online tracker that estimates the number of Model 3 electric cars Tesla is putting out a week and also estimates the total amount of the cars the company has built.

As of Friday afternoon, the tracker reflects that Tesla’s production has hit 1,082 Model 3s per week for a total of 7,535 electric sedans built so far.

Tesla does not release its production numbers to the public, however, Bloomberg has devised a way using Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs), a unique code stamped on every new car sold in the U.S., to estimate Model 3 production. Bloomberg relies on data from official U.S. government resources, social media, and direct communication with Tesla owners to compile the VINs.

Tesla is significantly behind on its own initial production estimates. CEO Elon Musk claimed in 2017 that Tesla would be producing 20,000 model 3s a month before the end of 2017. The company has since adjusted the timeline in hopes to achieve the same level of production by the end of 2018, Axios reported.

Musk has a history of over promising and under producing. After missing the Model 3 manufacturing rate goal in 2017, Tesla’s shares fell two percent.

“This is par for the course for Tesla and Elon Musk, whose history of stating goals and forecasts and not meeting them is pretty well established,” Kelley Blue Book Executive Publisher Karl Brauer told reporters in January. “Most independent experts found the production rates he was forecasting were pretty unlikely.”

The success of the Model 3 is important for Tesla to keep market competitors in Detroit and overseas at bay. Tesla has an early opportunity to corner the electric car market in the U.S. with its affordably priced $35,000 sedan, but it must ramp up production, Bloomberg reported.

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