Ahead of Model 3, Tesla leases new warehouses, loses 2 product chiefs

For Tesla, as one door opens, another closes. And, this time, they're not falcon-wing doors.

News broke on Monday that Tesla has leased two warehouses totaling one million square feet (the size of 17 football fields) in Livermore, California around 20 miles from the company's Fremont production facility, according to the San Francisco Times Business Journal.

Likely, this space will be used to produce the mass-market Model 3, which has received more than 400,000 pre-orders to date.

At the same time, though, Bloomberg reports that two production executives are leaving the company: Greg Reichow, Tesla's vice president of production and Josh Ensign, vice president of manufacturing.

Citing anonymous sources familiar with the situation, the chiefs are leaving due to Model X production delays and mishaps. However, a Tesla representative told Bloomberg that the departures of Reichow and Ensign are "not about the Model X."

All the production facility square footage in the world means nothing without the brain power to make a complex and massive assembly project come together. Only time will tell if Tesla can pull it all off for an on-time Model 3 production schedule in 2017.

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