Tesla said it would build 1,500 Model 3s in Q3 2017, but it only built 260
The production of Tesla's Model 3 isn't going as planned.
The company sent out a press release Monday, detailing vehicle deliveries and production for the third quarter of 2017. And in that period -- from July to September -- the company built just 260 Model 3 cars.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk previously said the company planned to produce 1,500 Model 3 cars in the quarter before ramping up production to approximately 20,000 per month by December.
The company ascribed the significantly smaller number of Model 3s built to "production bottlenecks."
"Although the vast majority of manufacturing subsystems at both our California car plant and our Nevada Gigafactory are able to operate at high rate, a handful have taken longer to activate than expected," the press release said.
In July, Musk had warned that the first six months of Model 3 production will be "manufacturing hell," saying there's a lot of things that could go wrong with the supply chain.
But in its note, Tesla emphasized that there are "no fundamental issues with the Model 3 production or supply chain." The company said it understands what needs to be fixed and is "confident of addressing the manufacturing bottleneck issues in the near-term."
It's not all bad. The third quarter of 2017 was great for Model S and Model X sales; Tesla delivered 14,065 of the former and 11,865 of the latter. The company said it expects to deliver "about 100,000" Model S and Model X cars in 2017, a 31% increase over 2016.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
