Tesla Roadster is now cheaper to build, says Elon Musk
In his personal blog, Elon Musk, the current CEO of Tesla, said the other day that the cost of building its Roadster has been cut down by more than 50 percent from $140,000 to only $80,000 after he moved battery production from Asia to California in the latter part of 2007.
The move got rid of the high costs of shipping heavy batteries across the sea and at the same time improved battery quality because of a more automated process which provided engineers the ability to make adjustments on the units for better efficiencies rather quickly. The move also cut the time it took for parts to move through the supply chain, which in turn eliminated the cost of inventory waiting for weeks at a time in transit. Musk points out that a lot of the inefficiencies of the Roadster came from decisions made by Martin Eberhard, the company’s previous CEO. Continued after the jump!
Musk and Eberhard have been exchanging words these past several weeks after the latter filed a lawsuit against the car company. In a statement he made, Musk claimed that he needed two years to effect an almost total reset of the Roadster program and he further said that the Roadster will never be priced at what Eberhard said it would be.
Currently, Tesla looks like it’s doing great after the past hurdles have been somewhat overcome. At present, production has reached a volume of 20 to 30 units weekly in the third quarter with the model coming with a price tag of $109,000. Musk is hopeful that, as early as this July, Tesla will become profitable once more. It has been also reported that Tesla is expected to be one of the recipients of government loans for EV production. The list of recipients will be revealed by the US Department of Energy in Dearborn, Michigan today.
Tags: car news, tesla news, tesla roadster news, tesla roadster production costs
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