Tesla is trying to ramp up production of the Tesla Model 3 to 5,000 units per week by the end of June, and it’s starting to see some progress toward that goal. This week, the automaker pushed out 500 Model 3s in a 24-hour period, according to an email from CEO Elon Musk.
In an email sent companywide Thursday morning, Musk congratulated staff and said it was the first time “we’ve been able to run at a rate of 500/day or an extrapolated 3500 customer deliverable cars per week.
“Congratulations on a big milestone!” Musk said.
Tesla still has its work cut out to hit the 5,000 per week target by the end of next month, and the automaker has seen ebbs and flows in production of the sedan since it launched the car last summer.
The electric carmaker has had a bumpy ride as of late, with Musk now regularly slamming news outlets for what he perceives as biased reporting against the company, despite years of Tesla receiving adoring coverage from the press.
In a previous email obtained by Jalopnik, Musk said Tesla’s looking to hire more workers at its assembly plant in Fremont, California, as part of an effort to hit an estimated 6,000 units by the end of June. Musk said the target is 6,000 units—not 5,000—because “we cannot have a number with no margin for error across thousands of internally and externally produced parts and processes, amplified by a complex global logistics chain.”
“Actual production will move as fast as the least lucky and least well-executed part of the entire Tesla production/supply chain system,” Musk said then.
The automaker recently introduced a performance model of the Model 3, priced at $78,000. The base model, starting at $35,000, and the major selling point of the Model 3 when it was first introduced, has yet to be made, but Tesla believes it’ll start production on it by the end of 2018.
A Tesla spokesperson had no comment when reached by Jalopnik.