Elon Musk says that the Tesla has a shot of delivering a record number of vehicles this quarter.
In an email sent to employees on Wednesday night and obtained by Business Insider, the outspoken chief executive said that the car manufacturer needs to sustain an output of 1000 Model 3s per day for the rest of the quarter to deliver more vehicles than it ever has before.
“As of yesterday, we had over 50,000 net new orders for this quarter. Based on current trends, we have a good chance of exceeding the record 90,700 deliveries of Q4 last year and making this the highest deliveries/sales quarter in Tesla history! If we rally hard, we can do it!”, the email stated.
Tesla’s best quarter came in Q4 2018 and ended what had been a difficult year on a high. Approximately 63,000 of the vehicles delivered in the final quarter last year were Model 3s, but total deliveries plummeted to 63,000 in the first quarter of 2019 following sales of the Model 3 kicking off in Europe and China. This reduced delivery figure was joined by a $702 million quarterly loss that came after the automaker recorded its first back-to-back profits in the second half of 2018.
Tesla could do with positive delivery numbers at the end of first quarter as it’s suffered through a difficult month as this week, the firm’s stock price fell to as low as $191, the lowest price since 2016.
“At the core of this decline is investors’ heightened concern about baseline demand following the fulfillment of initial pent up demand for Model 3 and the declining tax credit,” analyst Gene Munster said. “More recently, since the breakdown of US-China trade talks on May 5th, the case for Tesla missing their numbers has been strengthened.”