Tesla Model 3 'Release Candidates' Are Being Built

Mar 20, 2017 07:40 AM EDT | Ileen Jasmine

Despite the delay speculations surrounding the Tesla Model 3, reports this week indicates otherwise. In fact, the company is already inching towards its launch.

According to reports, Tesla Motors is already making so-called "release candidates" for the Model 3. This clearly indicates that the much-awaited electric vehicle is hitting quality targets much faster than expected.

Electrek recently reported that a conference call with a "select few investors" and an "investor-only" call with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and CFO Deepak Ahuja regarding the new approximately $1.2 billion capital raise was made. In the report, Electrek said, "The call wasn't made public, but an investor who participated gave them a breakdown of the main points brought up by the two executives during the call."

After that, the report continues to say Musk, saying Model 3 prototypes are being built with production tooling. With this case, Tesla is referring to the prototypes as "release candidates" instead of beta prototypes.

In the said call, Musk also revealed that the release candidates should be ready for driving internally within a couple of weeks. The production of the Tesla Model 3 is set to start in July.

Here's what JB Straubel, the Chief Technical Officer at Tesla, said in the February 23 earnings conference call about the model 3: "I might just add that we've really learned a lot of lessons, especially from the difficult Model X ramp...So, the amount of complexities in the operations to assemble the car is dramatically reduced...And a lot of these things that we could identify directly as the bottlenecks that hurt us on the Model X ramp, we've been able to target specifically and reduce or eliminate."

On the other hand, Elon Musk quickly followed those comments with a reality check, citing "force majeure" risk, saying: "And when you have several thousand unique items, it can move as fast as the least likely and worst executing part of Tesla or our suppliers. And so, it's one of the things that I think we want to do is just minimize force majeure risk. But it's always tricky being a public company, reporting on a quarterly basis."

Does this mean the Tesla Model 3 will be out sooner than anticipated? Keep checking back on Auto World News for more updates.

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