Another quarter, another leaked email from Tesla CEO Elon Musk pushing for employees to crank out more cars. According to a leaked email Reuters viewed on Wednesday, Musk thinks the automaker has a good chance at building 500,000 cars this year, which would make for a new record output.
Although Musk first imagined Tesla would achieve the milestone this January, the coronavirus pandemic uprooted nearly every automaker's forecasts for the year. Musk and Tesla, however, continue to stand by the prediction the electric carmaker will churn out 500,000 EVs this year. Increasing scale has long been a goal of Tesla, in order to bring down manufacturing costs. In the email, which Roadshow has not verified, Musk reportedly wrote, "This all comes down to Q4. Please take whatever steps you can think of to improve output (while increasing quality)."
Tesla does not operate a public relations department to field requests for comment.
To put that figure in context, 2.1 million electric vehicles were sold globally in 2019, according to the International Energy Agency. The bullish target comes after the automaker announced it delivered nearly 140,000 cars in the third quarter of this year.Â
Tesla's continued positive performance inches Musk closer to yet another tranche of his ambitious pay package, which awards the CEO stock options when the company hits certain targets. The next milestone could put another $3 billion in Musk's bank account, were he to cash in the options. With a net worth of $115 billion, Musk is reportedly the world's third richest person, after Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, following major increases in the share prices of both Tesla and SpaceX this year.
