While Tesla needs to look to the future to its next car the Model X, and its plans for a massive battery factory, the electric car company is still solidly concentrating on ramping up manufacturing of its current Model S electric car over the course of this year. In an earnings statement released on Wednesday Tesla said that it made 7,535 Model S cars — a record — for the first quarter of 2014, and plans to make between 8,500 and 9,000 Model S cars in the following quarter.
In total Tesla wants to deliver 35,000 Model S cars in 2014, with an eventual production rate of 1,000 vehicles per week (it’s currently at 700 per week). While the ramp up in manufacturing might sound like a relatively minor move, the amount of lithium ion battery cells available to Tesla is actually one of the more substantial dampeners on that growth. Tesla says in its shareholder letter that “battery cell supply will constrain development in Q2 but improve in Q3.”
Via Paul Brody.