Tesla lagging on Model 3 production, workers say

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tesla Inc. ( TSLA.O ) is not enough of a CEO Elon Musk said he would reach by Saturday, Three line workers at the Fremont Company, California, assembly plant told Reuters this week.

The company was able to assemble and paint 210 Model 3s during the first of two 12-hour shifts on Wednesday, one worker told Reuters. One of two Monday shifts, the company produced 305 of the vehicles, another worker told Reuters. The number of vehicles assembled for the plant.

The company is running two 12-hour shifts per day. If the company produces 300 Model 3 vehicles during all 14 shifts, it would produce 4,200 cars for the week.

Tesla declined to be used in the production of numbers.

The Model 3, originally priced at $ 35,000, is intended to help propel power-driven vehicles into the mainstream and Tesla into profitability. But Tesla has struggled to produce it.

The company's Fremont, California, factory has been plagued by a series of fires, including at least two in June.

Musk said it was "quite likely" that Tesla would be able to build 5,000 Model 3s per week by the end of June. At the time, Tesla was producing 3,500 of the vehicles per week, Musk said.

But the worker who provided production for Wednesday's first shift said bottlenecks persist.

"They can not handle the load because they have the Model S and X that they normally do not have these Model 3s," the worker told Reuters. "The paint department just can not keep up."

"Basically we've been in a long endurance race, and now coaching us at a 4-mile finishing kick," said one employee at the Gigafactory company near Reno, Nevada, where batteries for the Model 3 are made.

To reach Musk's goal, the company has borrowed workers from its Model S and Model X lines this week to work on the Model 3, and on Wednesday, the factory supervisors announced to workers that everyone is to come on Saturday.

Earlier this month, Musk tweeted a photo of a new Model 3 production line built inside the company's Fremont campus. "Needed another general assembly line to reach 5k / week Model 3 production," Musk tweeted on June 18. "A new building was impossible, so we built a giant tent in 2 weeks."

A few cars so far, said the worker who provided the production for Monday's shifts.

Often, those cars have been reworked, said the worker who provided the Wednesday figure. "It's a makeshift area," the worker said.