According to a report from Electrek, Tesla’s new Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, is currently capable of producing “at least 2,000” Model Y units per week.
Sources told the publication that Giga Texas has ramped up production to several thousand vehicles per week. People familiar with the developments at the site also said the plant is making as many as 5,000 vehicles available for delivery per week. Whether or not these production rates are sustainable remains unclear at the moment.
Tesla was previously facing difficulty scaling production in Texas and Berlin due to component shortages. The electric automaker was assembling Model Y units with structural battery packs and its new 4680 cells, the supply of which is severely bottlenecked, at both plants.
Some of the sources told Electrek that Tesla was able to significantly boost production in Texas by adding the Model Y Long Range to assembly lines. Up until now, Gigafactory Texas was only producing the Model Y Standard Range with 4680 cells.
We reported last week that both Giga Texas and Giga Berlin have started producing the Long Range flavor of Tesla’s Model Y. However, Giga Texas is building Long Range Model Ys with non-structural battery packs and its older 2170 cells.
The move is not surprising, considering Tesla already announced that Giga Texas would start manufacturing Model Ys with non-structural battery packs and 2170 cells sometime this year. That said, the carmaker resorting to using 2170 cells goes to show that its supply sorrows persist.
It also means that customers taking delivery of Texas-made Long Range Model Ys are losing out on the new 4680 cells, which Tesla has established are the future for the company.
Giga Texas only started delivering cars in April. That being the case, a production rate in the thousands of units per week is impressive nonetheless.
Yesterday, the first customers taking deliveries of a Model Y Long Range made at Giga Texas shared images on the TMC Forums.
Giga Berlin, meanwhile, hit a milestone production rate of more than 1,000 cars per week earlier this month. Unfortunately, supply constraints are expected to prevent Berlin from ramping any further this year.
Volkswagen AG CEO Herbert Diess said on Tuesday that production woes are “weakening” Tesla. He added that his company could therefore overtake Tesla to become the EV market leader by 2025.
