Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) Production Surpasses a Key Weekly Milestone

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has been seeing increased popularity – and controversy – in 2013 as its direct-to-consumer online sales model, business model and structure have gained the approval of car-buyers and investors, including fund manager Ken Griffin (see his full equity portfolio). In the first six months of this calendar year, Tesla’s stock price has tripled, the company paid back a $450 million government loan nine years early, and after producing about 5,000 cars last year, Tesla is on pace to surpass its 20,000-car goal this year.

And if you do the math, for a company to produce 20,000 cars to sell them in a single calendar year, that will take an average production of just shy of 400 cars per week. To be accurate, the full 52-week average is 384 cars per week. With that in mind, Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk  commented that as the calendar passes the halfway point of the year, the company’s factory is now producing well north of 400 cars per week.

This is a far cry from the factory’s heyday, when it  produced about 10,000 cars per week as a joint-venture with General Motors and Toyota in the 1990s and early 2000s, but for a startup automotive company that offers a vehicle for $70,000, to have the opportunity to pass 20,000 vehicles produced in a year would be an obvious milestone.

Musk went on to say that Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) should be able to produce 800 vehicles per week by late in 2014, which would be about the time that the company intends to roll out its Model X SUV, with a more compact version of the Model S and a compact SUV also in the pipeline over the next three years. “We going to have every kind of car you could possibly imagine,” Musk said. “If it moves, we’ll make it.”

He indicated that by the time a full line of vehicles hits the assembly line, the plant in Fremont, California would return to its pre-Tesla production level of 500,000 cars per year.

Musk predicted Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) would sell 21,000 Model S vehicles this year, with Europe and Asia deliveries launching during the second half of the year. Analysts, however, project that the company will suffer a 17-cent EPS loss when it announces its second-quarter earnings results – though that date has not been announced yet. What are your thoughts about Tesla?

Is it the next fad company, or is there something to this company that suggests long-term success? What have your learned about Tesla’s business model and its Model S? Give us your feedback about this Wall Street darling in the comments section below.

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