Tesla Breaks its Own Delivery and Production Records in a Profitable Q1
martyb writes:
Tesla breaks its own delivery and production records in a profitable Q1:
Tesla's first quarter in 2021 was as busy as ever, despite being forced to find solutions to serious global issues like the semiconductor shortage and the continued effects of the pandemic on supply chains, according to its investor deck published Monday. As in the past few quarters, Tesla managed to turn a profit, but the financials don't tell the whole story.
The big news is that Tesla once again managed to beat its own record for production and customer deliveries, delivering 184,877 vehicles in Q1. That's possible because of continued expansion at the Gigafactory in Shanghai and continued high-volume production of Models 3 and Y at Fremont. These numbers will likely continue to go way up as new Gigafactories in Germany and Texas come online.
[...] A big part of Tesla's ability to keep production up during the silicon shortage has been its willingness to pivot away from the various microcontrollers and other processors that it's historically used and towards units that are more readily available in the current climate. This has necessitated firmware changes to make the new hardware work, but to their credit, Tesla's engineers have apparently kept on top of the issue.
Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" option stays on the path to becoming "optical only" as its developers continue to reduce reliance on radar.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.