Tesla breaks another production record

While Tesla financial figures for the first quarter of 2019 aren't due for a little while yet, the company did just reveal its production figures, and they're good. The all-EV car company managed to produce a record 87,048 cars and delivered a record 95,200 to customers. That's a massive increase over the 63,000 vehicles delivered in Q1, topping the previous record of 90,700 deliveries in Q4 of 2018.

This quarter was massively important for the company, which has seen its stock price suffer of late around uncertainty surrounding continued demand for the Model 3 sedan and the aging Model S. Demand for the Model 3 looks strong, as deliveries there increased from 50,900 in Q1 to 77,550. Model S and Model X deliveries combined totaled 17,650, up from 12,100 in the previous quarter. 

While Tesla hasn't said how many orders remain on the books, the company does state that orders generated in Q2 exceeded deliveries, thus pointing to a strong Q3 ahead -- assuming Tesla's production efficiency efforts continue to pay dividends. CEO Elon Musk promised investors the company would deliver between 360,000 and 400,000 cars this year. To meet the lower end of that scale, the company will need to deliver over 100,000 cars in each of the next two quarters.

That's beginning to approach the theoretical maximum output of Tesla's Fremont facility, which back in its NUMMI days as a joint factory with Toyota and General Motors had an estimated 500,000 annual ceiling. However, the most ever produced out of the factory was 428,633 cars. Musk will need to push very close to that rate for the rest of the year to meet the market's expectations.