Elon Musk Instagram Model 3 Video: Company Behind On Tesla Production

Tesla customers will likely be waiting longer than they bargained for when they paid a down payment for one of the Model 3 vehicles from the company. Tesla missed its third quarter goals for Model 3 production this year, although production for the company overall is up.

The Model 3 is the vehicle from Tesla’s lineup that the company and buyers are hoping would change the all-electric car market. The Model 3 is expected to come at a far lower price point than the other models for those customers looking for a mode affordable option. The only problem is that the company is behind in production and customers who paid the $1,000 down payment might not actually end up with their new vehicles for longer than they expected.

On Sunday, Elon Musk, Tesla founder and CEO, posted a video of the assembly line working on the Model 3 vehicles on his Instagram account. The caption said the line was “slowed down to 1/10th speed.” Robotic arms can be seen working away as sparks fly from the structural body of the vehicle mid production.

The plan for the Model 3, which will probably need altering, is displayed on Tesla’s website and shows that the production was expected to start sometime in August and ramp up between then and December. The site currently says that there is a 12 to 18 month expected wait time for deliveries, “As we ramp up production, deliveries for Model 3 reservations placed today are not expected to be delivered until mid 2018.”

The plan for 2017 was to achieve production of the long range battery necessary for the car, begin custom deliveries in October and to begin producing the standard battery in November. The company had been estimating that it would build 1,500 Model 3 vehicles during the third quarter but ended up producing just 260 and delivering 220 of those, according to a statement from Tesla.

The delay is “due to production bottlenecks,” said Tesla, these occurred because the subsystems at the California car plant and at the gigafactory in Nevada took a bit longer to get up and running than expected.

“It is important to emphasize that there are no fundamental issues with the Model 3 production or supply chain. We understand what needs to be fixed and we are confident of addressing the manufacturing bottleneck issues in the near-term,” said the statement.

The company also said that the delivery count should be viewed as “conservative” meaning they may have delivered more than 220 cars, but that they only count a car as delivered if it has transferred to the customer and all the paperwork was done and finished correctly. But in total during Q3 the company says it delivered more than 26,000 vehicles, setting the course to deliver 100,000 vehicles in 2017, the most the company has ever accomplished.