Late Friday, Tesla filed with federal regulators to clarify a statement from Chief Executive Elon Musk during the analyst call after the results on the Model 3 projected ramp and automated lines to arrive from Tesla’s manufacturing automation unit in Germany.
On the call, Musk said Tesla expected the new lines to arrive in March. He went on to say that the lines were already working at the German unit, but needed to be “disassembled, brought out to the Gigafactory and reassembled and then go into operation at the Gigafactory.”
“It’s not a question whether it works or not. It’s just a question of disassembly, transport and reassembly. So we expect to alleviate that constraint,” Musk said on the call. “With alleviating that constraint, that’s what gets us to the roughly 2,000 to 2,500 unit per week production rate.”
The 2,000 to 2,500 units per week cited in the comments “refers solely to the capacity of the additional automated battery module manufacturing equipment that is currently located in Germany, and not to Tesla’s total Model 3 production run rate or to the capacity of the automated battery module equipment that is already present” at the gigafactory, Tesla said in the filing.
“Tesla’s ability to meet its target of 2,500 per week by end of Q1 2018 is not dependent on the additional equipment that is currently located in Germany, as that equipment is expected to start ramping production during Q2 2018,” the company said.
Tesla’s ability to get to the target of 2,500 per week by the end of March is dependent only on equipment already at the Reno battery factory, “as well as the incremental capacity that is currently being added through” semi-automated lines, Tesla said.
The company said it was on track to produce 5,000 Model 3s a week by the end of the second quarter and 2,500 a week when the first quarter draws to a close.
