- Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly wrote a letter to employees saying the company would target the production of 6,000 Model 3s a week by the end of June.
- Tesla has been struggling to meet lower production targets.
- Shares of the electric-car maker were up more than 2% ahead of Wednesday’s opening bell.
Shares of Tesla were rallying early Wednesday, trading up 2.06% at $293.62 a share after the automotive-news website Electrek reported Tuesday evening that Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote a letter to employees raising the company’s Model 3 production target.
“We will be stopping for three to five days to do a comprehensive set of upgrades,” Electrek reported Musk’s letter as saying. “This should set us up for Model 3 production of 3000 to 4000 per week next month.”
Earlier in April, Tesla announced disappointing Model 3 production numbers but pledged to reach its target of 5,000 cars a week by the end of its second quarter. On Monday, Tesla said it had temporarily suspended its Model 3 assembly line to “improve automation and systematically address bottlenecks.”
“Another set of upgrades starting in late May should be enough to unlock production capacity of 6,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by the end of June,” Electrek quoted Musk as saying in the letter.
Before Wednesday, the electric-car maker's shares had slid more than 16% since the beginning of March amid a slew of issues including an ongoing government investigation into a fatal Model X crash in California and a downgrade from Moody's.
More recently, a report from the Center for Investigative Reporting out Monday said Tesla deliberately concealed serious injuries from public reports to boost its safety statistics.
Tesla was down 7.6% this year through Tuesday, battling to get back above the key $300 level.
