Fireworks display reflecting on the facility during the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing “Cyber Rodeo” grand opening party on April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas. – Tesla welcomed throngs of electric car lovers to Texas on April 7 for a huge party inaugurating a “gigafactory” the size of 100 professional soccer fields. (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP) (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images)
SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images
(Bloomberg) — Tesla Inc. is building 3,000 Model Y SUVs a week at its new Austin, Texas, factory — a sign that the electric-car maker is making up for lost time at the money-losing plant.
Tesla shared the new production figure in a tweet Thursday. The milestone comes a week after Bloomberg News reported that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had asked the head of the company’s China division to get the Austin factory up to speed.
Extrapolated out over a year, that production rate would get Tesla to about 156,000 vehicles, which is still short of the annual target of 250,000 that the company promoted in its third-quarter letter to shareholders.
Read more: Musk says new Teslas plants lose billions
But it’s a long way from the slow start Tesla experienced in Austin, which was due in part to the company pivoting at the last minute to using older battery cells after it found a new design wasn’t ready for volume production.
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