Elon Musk confirms 7,000 Tesla cars made in 7 days

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to praise the team at Tesla for producing 7,000 cars in only screen days. While not all the cars were the in-demand Model 3, a full 5,000 of that number produced were Model 3 EVs. The final car in that 7,000-production run left the assembly line on Sunday morning.

With that car rolling out the doors, Tesla met Musk's goal of producing that many cars in a week a few hours after the midnight goal Musk had set. Word is that the last of the 5,000 Model 3 cars made had completed its final quality checks at around 5am PDT.

Whether or not Tesla could have maintained that high of a production rate is unknown. Tesla has been working hard to overcome all sorts of production challenges. These bottlenecks have been blamed on over-reliance on automation at the assembly lines where the cars are built.

Tesla has also blamed battery issues and other production bottlenecks for delays. Tesla had to work very hard to reach the 5,000 Model 3 units in a week goal. That work involved setting up another complete assembly line inside a giant tent outside the main factory.

Tesla is known for making so-called "burst builds" that are meant to estimate how many cars it could produce over an extended period. Analysts watching Tesla have warned investors to be wary of "burst rates" because these levels of Model 3 production aren't sustainable. Tesla has yet to begin building the cheap $35,000 Model 3 that is the automakers' mass market car.

SOURCE: CNBC