Elon Musk has told workers at Tesla not to rush to meet orders, but rather to focus on minimising costs.
The famous CEO recently sent out a company-wide email that was seen by CNBC. In the email, Musk ordered that the focus for the quarter should be on “minimizing cost of deliveries rather than spending heavily on expedite fees, overtime and temporary contractors just so that cars arrive in Q4.”
Musk claimed that the company had historically made every effort to “maximise deliveries” at the end of the quarter, but that the company’s deliveries then tended to drop off during the first part of the following quarter.
The Tesla CEO’s stated preference would be to avoid the resulting increase in costs and burn out in favour of “a steadier and more efficient pace of deliveries”.
Tesla delivered 500,000 cars in total in 2020, but has already reported 627,350 deliveries in the first three quarters of 2021. This in spite of the ongoing logistical issue and component shortages blighting every industry, including the automotive business.
The company hasn’t revealed a target for 2021, but has a loose aim of “50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries” over the coming years.
Not that Tesla’s production line has been unaffected by current global shortages. In mid-November, it was reported that some new Tesla customers were noticing that their vehicles were missing USB-C ports. Tesla has said that this is due to the aforementioned chip shortages, and that customers would be able to make an appointment to have the USB ports installed once the issues had been resolved.
The company recently started opening out its charging facilities to other EV brands – other brands that are starting to ramp up their electric vehicle efforts.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
