Tesla Failed to Build As Many Cars As It Hoped Last Quarter

Elon Musk’s electric car-making machine falls a few thousand vehicles short of goal.

byAaron Brown|
Tesla Failed to Build As Many Cars As It Hoped Last Quarter
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In an announcement that comes very close to the definition of "adding insult to injury" after last week's pile of bad news, Tesla announced during a shareholders meeting on Sunday that the carmaker missed its second quarter delivery goal. To make matters even worse for the electric car maker, the weak figure also failed to beat Tesla's first-quarter delivery number... which also fell short of its original quota. Sucks to suck, as the kids say.

The company said it delivered a total of 14,370 cars during the second quarter of 2016, which falls well short of its expected goal of 17,000 vehicles. Breaking it down, Tesla said it was able to push out 9,745 Model Ss and 4,625 Model Xs between April and June. These numbers do not include the 5,150 Model S and Model X vehicles the automaker claims were still on en-route to their owners by the end of the quarter; those cars will be lumped in with the cars that head off the line in Q3.

The automaker blames the missed goal on an "extreme production ramp," a phrase which seems like it's missing the word "up" at the end of it, and the multitude of vehicles still in transit toward the end of the quarter.

By the end of the second quarter, Tesla was churning out 2,000 cars a week. The automaker hopes to raise that number to 2,200 vehicles a week in quarter three and 2,400 per week in quarter four. No matter how quickly they get to 2,400 cars per week, however, this weak start means it's going to be incredibly difficult—if not impossible—for the company to achieve its goal of 80,000 to 90,000 deliveries in 2016.

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