San Francisco: Chief Executive of the electric car maker Tesla Elon Musk has said that the company will now build Model 3 sedan round the clock until the end of June to produce 6,000 cars per week.
The announcement comes a day after Tesla temporarily suspended its Model 3 assembly line as the firm struggled to deliver on targets.
The company said the move was a planned production pause of up to five days. It is the second time since February that Tesla has halted its production line for the Model 3 at its Fremont, California plant.
Tesla would add “400 people per week for several weeks” to meet the new target and the production would be done at its Fremont, California factory, for 24 hours a day in order to meet the goal, The Verge cited news website Jalopnik late on Tuesday.
According to Musk, Tesla needs to make 6,000 Model 3 per week by the end of June — an increase of the company’s previous target of 5,000 per week.
“The reason for the new target is that 5,000 Model 3s per week leaves the company with ‘no margin for error’ across the company’s manufacturing process and supply 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 was quoted as saying.
Musk said the halt of the production line at the Gigafactory and Fremont would let the company use this time to perform a “comprehensive set of upgrades” that will allow it to get to production rates of 3,000 to 4,000 per week in May.
The shutdown took Tesla staff at the plant by surprise, forcing them to use vacation days or stay at home without pay, according to BuzzFeed.
Musk recently admitted that “excessive automation” at the Tesla plant had contributed to what he calls “manufacturing hell” and had actually slowed down manufacturing of the crucial mass-market model.
The electric car firm has repeatedly missed targets and was now been trying to reach a production volume of 2,500 vehicles per week.
Musk recently said Tesla was managing to make 2,000 Model 3 sedan a week but failed to assuage doubts about the company reaching its 5,000-a-week target in three months time.
IANS