Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in an effort to get a handle on the manufacturing problems that have hampered the company’s self-imposed goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 per week by the end of June, has further pushed the company’s finances into questionable territory.
At least this is what two sources familiar with the situation, speaking under anonymity, told Reuters late last week. “As usual with Tesla, everything is being done in a massive hurry and money seems to be no obstacle,” said one of the two sources.
One of the sources noted that the first two shipments of robotics and other equipment had arrived at the Nevada Gigafactory, and they are expected to be installed in Gigafactory 1’s battery module production line.
The source, who seemed to know an awful lot about what was going on with Tesla, also said that engineers from Tesla’s German engineering arm, Grohmann, have been sent to the Nevada Gigafactory to address the production bottlenecks that have slowed the production of the Model 3’s battery packs.
The public first was made aware of the Reno Gigafactory’s production line problems last November when Musk disclosed plans for this line during a conference call with analysts. At that time, he complained about the problems on the original line built by subcontractors.
However, it seems that Musk has taken on a “no expense will be spared” effort to keep his production promises. And this is what led to the decision to bring in robotics from Europe by air, a step that is usually avoided by carmakers simply because it is such an expensive endeavor.
As the U.K.’s Daily Mail notes, Gigafactory 1 is still growing and is scheduled to be completed sometime in 2020. The current structure takes up about 1.9 million square feet in size and houses 4.9 million square feet of operational space across several floors.
”Once complete, we expect the Gigafactory to be the biggest building in the world,” Tesla said. To put it another way, according to Tesla, the Gigafactory will be the size of 100 football fields.
