Elon Musk admits Tesla was "a few weeks from death"

Elon Musk admitted that Tesla was "a few weeks" from death earlier this year as she struggled to meet the production targets of the Model 3 sedan.

Speaking to Axios on HBO, the billionaire revealed just how much tension last year had had a negative impact on his physical and mental health.

"Tesla has really faced a death threat this year because of the production ramp of Model 3," he said. "We were in the one digit weeks."

Musk said that the company was "bleeding money madly and that if we did not solve these problems in a very short time, we would die and it was extremely difficult to solve them."

After missing several deadlines, Tesla finally achieved its production target of 5000 Model 3 per week during the last seven days of June. Last month, the company released its first quarterly profit since 2016, which surprised analysts.

"I was working seven days a week in the factory.I was in the paint shop, in the general assembly and in the body shop," Musk told HBO.

When asked if he was worried about his "implosion", Musk said, "Yes, absolutely, no one should spend so much time at work, it's not good, people should not work as well. They should not do it, it's very painful, it hurts my brain and my heart. "

Before reaching its production target, Tesla was expected to repay about US $ 1 billion (US $ 1.4 billion) – about US $ 230 million in November – without the cash to run the business. .

"I've already said that we have to prove that Tesla could be sustainably profitable," he told reporters when calling last month's results. "This quarter was an important step in that direction."

Musk has informed patient patients who paid deposits for their models 3 as early as March 2016 that the first deliveries to Australia will take place "around mid-2019".

After taxes and import duties, the cheapest model 3 will cost about AUD 80,000 (US $ 85,132), which will compare it to a Mercedes-Benz C300 or Audi A4 2.0 TFSI quattro.

The leader of the electric car manufacturer had a tumultuous year marked by personal and professional scandals.

He stepped down as president last month under an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, worth $ 40 million, alleging that Musk had misled investors by a series tweets suggesting that he had funds to privatize the company.

Musk is also being sued for defamation by British diving expert Vernon Unsworth – who helped rescue the Thai caves earlier this year – for dealing with "paedo guy" during an attack. extraordinary on Twitter.