Model 3 now

The final piece of the overall plan at Tesla is the mass market Model 3 (its design was unveiled about 16 months ago). Last Friday was the first day that Model 3's started rolling out of the factory. About 30 of them went to employees who will try to discover any bugs.

Elon Musk says that they will produce 100 in August, then 1500 in September, somehow ramping up to 20,000 Model 3's in December. That's a huge ramp-up, but there's more to come in the way of a hard-to-believe production goal. By 2018 - that's next year - their goal is to manufacture 500,000 cars (all three current models). Compare that to the approximately 25,000 cars they put out every quarter right now.

"We're going to go through at least six months of manufacturing hell," Musk told journalists."

photo of Model 3 glass roof: usatoday.com

Wired.com released this video last Thursday for an good overview of the goals of Tesla Motors Inc.

For more background, check posts under "Tesla" or "Elon Musk" under Labels to the right.

(cont'd tomorrow)