The second quarter ended on Saturday, and with it Tesla's deadline for producing 5,000 of the company's Model 3 electric vehicles. Sure enough, the goal was reached in time, but Elon Musk also confirmed via Twitter that Tesla produced 7,000 cars last week.
As CNBC reports, the 5,000th Model 3 passed final quality checks on Sunday at 5 a.m. PDT at the Fremont, California, factory. The 7,000 total includes all other cars Tesla currently produces. Clearly there has been an extra production push to meet the Model 3 target, so it's unclear if Tesla can maintain that level of output or if it will fall back slightly next week.
7000 cars, 7 days
â™¥ï¸ Tesla Team â™¥ï¸ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2018
For Tesla, 2018 has so far been dominated by getting the production numbers up for the Model 3. At one point production was paused to improve automation. Shortly afterwards, the factory moved to a 24/7 production cycle, which significantly increased those numbers.
Hitting the self-imposed target of 5,000 a week is not only important for Tesla in terms of PR and investor relations, it also helps pave the way to profitability. Orders for the Model 3 certainly aren't going to slow down considering Tesla reduced the price last week, with the Performance version now $14,000 cheaper at $64,000.
If production at this level can be maintained it will allow Tesla and Musk to move the focus over to what comes next, and that looks to be the Model Y. A new teaser image was revealed by Tesla last month, but little is known beyond the Model Y being built on the same platform as the Model 3, only in compact SUV form and using Falcon Wing doors. We shouldn't expect production to start until early 2020.