Tesla has revealed its third quarter financial results, which includes detailing some of the issues that it’s had with the Model 3. Tesla says that Model 3 production continues to increase, but as it stated last month, there are several bottlenecks that are currently keeping production numbers low.
Tesla says that the bottle neck is mainly the battery module assembly line at Gigafactory 1, where cells are packaged into modules. The bottlenecks have now caused Tesla to delay its goal of producing 5,000 units per week to “late Q1 2018,” which is basically a 3-month delay. Last month Tesla revealed that it only managed to produce 260 Model 3 sedans in the third quarter and now we have more insight into what’s causing the issues.
“To date, our primary production constraint has been in the battery module assembly line at Gigafactory 1, where cells are packaged into modules. Four modules are packaged into an aluminum case to form a Model 3 battery pack. The combined complexity of module design and its automated manufacturing process has taken this line longer to ramp than expected. The biggest challenge is that the first two zones of a four zone process, key elements of which were done by manufacturing systems suppliers, had to be taken over and significantly redesigned by Tesla.”
“Based on what we know now, we currently expect to achieve a production rate of 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by late Q1
2018.”
With the three month delay, Tesla has now updated the expected delivery time for the Model 3 reservation holders.
Source: Tesla
