Tesla Inc has missed its production target for the Model 3 sedan, the first mid-priced electric vehicle for the mass market in its lineup, the automaker announced on Monday.
Only 260 of the sedans were produced in the third quarter due to “production bottlenecks,” the company said, failing to meet founder and CEO Elon Musk’s expectations of 1,500 Model 3s delivered by last month.
The electric car maker started taking reservations for its mass-market sedan in March last year, which is priced from US$35,000 and is key to the company’s plans to expand market share.
The company said it has received about 450,000 preorders for the Model 3.
Production has been hobbled by a bottleneck in a handful of “manufacturing subsystems,” Tesla said in a statement.
“There are no fundamental issues with the Model 3 production or supply chain. We understand what needs to be fixed and we are confident of addressing the manufacturing bottleneck issues in the near term,” the statement said.
Musk has predicted much higher deliveries for the Model 3 sedan by the end of the year.
“Looks like we can reach 20,000 Model 3 cars per month by Dec,” Musk said on Twitter in July, when announcing deliveries of the first 30 of the highly anticipated cars.
Not long after Tesla was founded in 2003, Musk said the plan was to use money from high-end electric vehicles to create more affordable offerings to make the technology the new automotive norm.
Tesla also plans to unveil a heavy transport truck later this month, further broadening its lineup.
“Tesla Semi truck unveil & test ride tentatively scheduled for Oct 26th,” Musk wrote on Twitter last month. “Worth seeing this beast in person. It’s unreal.”
The company on Monday also announced that it increased production of Model S and Model X vehicles to an all-time quarterly best of 26,150 vehicles, and forecast that it would deliver 100,000 of the luxury models this year — one-third more than last year.
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