A top Tesla executive sent a rousing email to employees encouraging them to prove “a bunch of haters wrong,” as the company tries to meet production targets for its Model 3 electric vehicle.
The email, obtained and reported by Bloomberg, provides a peek into the current environment at Tesla, a company that is burning through cash and struggling to ramp up production on its Model 3. Tesla has missed production and delivery targets for the Model 3 every quarter since the first vehicles were handed to customers (which initially were their own employees) in July.
Tesla is expected to report next week its production and delivery numbers for the first quarter. The automaker is aiming for 2,500 Model 3 a week by the end of the quarter.
Doug Field, senior vice president of engineering at Tesla, sent the email March 23 to staff. He wrote that it would be an “incredible victory” if Tesla could exceed assembling 300 Model 3 vehicles a day as some investors have chosen to short the company’s stock, according to Bloomberg.
“I find that personally insulting, and you should too. Let’s make them regret ever betting against us,” Field wrote in the March 23 email. “You will prove a bunch of haters wrong.”
In a separate email on March 21, which Tesla contends is unrelated to Model 3 production, Peter Hochholdinger, vice president of production, wrote to employees that Tesla would suspend Model S and Model X production Thursday and Friday because it’s ahead of target on building those this quarter. Bloomberg also obtained this email.
Hochholdinger said some employees would have the option of working on the Model 3 line instead of taking time off during the Model S and X shutdown.
A Tesla spokesperson told Fortune that the planned shutdown for the Model S and Model X production line is only for Friday and is not related to Model 3 production targets.
However, the company has used this strategy in the past. In the fourth quarter, Tesla said it slightly reduced Model S and X production to reallocate some of the manufacturing workforce towards Model 3 production.
Tesla’s production problems were revealed in early October when the automaker reported it had produced just 260 of its new Model 3 electric cars in the third quarter, of which it delivered 220. Things improved in the fourth quarter, but were still below estimates. Tesla produced 2,425 of its new Model 3 electric cars in the fourth quarter and delivered 1,542.
