Tesla Motors has missed its delivery target for the second consecutive quarter and may well fall short of its annual target, leading some to speculate if the innovative electric car maker has found any sort of solution for its production issues as it looks to move into the mainstream.
Tesla delivered 14,370 vehicles during the second quarter, missing its target of 17,000 vehicles. The cause of the miss, according to corporate sources, was an unusually large number of vehicles literally in transit and “extreme” production ramp-ups that lead to about half of the quarter’s vehicles being made in the last month.
All in, Tesla is forecasting delivery of 50K vehicles during the second part of 2016, but even hitting that goal would leave them a hair behind their annual target since the first half of the year saw only 29,190 vehicles delivered. The current forecast is for 80K-90K in deliveries.
Some analysts are unconvinced that Tesla can make the mass-market jump given the rocky start and various production challenges for the tech-heavy vehicle. Tesla’s offer to buy solar installation firm SolarCity last month got a tepid response adding line to their recent troubles. Also unwelcome is the coming investigation of a fatal crash in which the driver of a Tesla Model S car was using its Autopilot feature, the first such accident that has been made public.
Tesla, however, is moving forward with production of its mass market Model 3 after receiving 373,000 reservations for the vehicle. Musk said in May that his firm will build 500,000 all-electric vehicles in 2018, and that its 2020 volume target was close to 1 million vehicles.
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