Tesla Memo Suggest Production Boost Incoming
After posting a stinker of a first quarter, Tesla entered into a training montage and managed record-setting production output in Q2 — helping nudge its all-important share price back in the right direction.
Now, internal documents have shown the automaker is trying to position itself to further boost production at its California factory and might even bring some new staff on board. Question the legitimacy of this “leak” if you must, but that won’t change Tesla’s ultimate goal of more volume and happier investors in Q3.
According to an e-mail from the desk of Tesla VP Jerome Guillen intercepted by Bloomberg, the company is preparing to raise output in Fremont. “While we can’t be too specific in this email, I know you will be delighted with the upcoming developments,” he told employees. Not much of a bombshell but Tesla likely isn’t taking on staff out of the kindness of its heart.
From Bloomberg:
Tesla has said it plans to produce “significantly” more than the 360,000 to 400,000 vehicles the company expects to deliver in 2019. Output may reach 500,000 vehicles worldwide this year if its factory near Shanghai can reach “volume production” early in the fourth quarter, the company told shareholders in April.
Guillen wrote in his newsletter that several portions of the Shanghai plant are falling into place.
“The Stamping, Body, Paint, and General Assembly lines in China are well underway and hitting records in both line design and fabrication,” he said.
Guillen’s note urging employees to put the word out that Tesla is hiring may have come as a bit of a surprise. Musk announced plans to reduce headcount by about 7 percent in January and 9 percent in June 2018.
Some of those new hires will, no doubt, be helping build the Model Y crossover in 2020. But Guillen was intentionally vague with the details and requested that employees not share information with outside entities… you know, after telling them to spread the word about hiring.
“Do not share company information through email, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. Leave that to Elon!” he wrote. “Once that information is public, feel free [to] retweet your heart out, share on IG or FB.”
Don’t worry, Jerome. We’ll keep a lid on things.
[Image: Nadezda Murmakova/Shutterstock]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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@tonycd: Might I recommend some research on the number of hard-shell buildings Tesla has added to the property? You seem to be sorely lacking on facts.
I wish Tesla would go private. Then they wouldn't have to dangle shiny objects (self-driving this! pickup-truck that!) in order to keep the ADHD-riddled junior-high drama class known as the "investor community" interested, and could focus on the only two things that matter right now: 1) getting Model 3 production volume up, and 2) launching a Model Y based heavily on the Model 3.