In past five years, Tesla failed to meet more than 20 of his projections, and missed 10 goals by nearly a year on average; Musk says he ‘doesn’t set targets that I know can’t be met’. In May, Elon Musk made another of the bold projections that have become commonplace for the Tesla Motors Inc. chief executive when he said the electric car maker expected to deliver about 17,000 vehicles to buyers in the second quarter, its biggest ever.
In July, Tesla did something else that has become commonplace: It missed Mr. Musk’s target. Tesla said it delivered 14,370 vehicles, blaming the 15% shortfall partly on cars that were still on trucks and ships at the end of June.“I have never set a goal which I know is unrealistic, unless I have specifically said I know it’s unrealistic,” said Mr. Musk, 45 years old, in an interview. Earlier this month, he committed to boosting Tesla’s weekly output more than 50% by the end of this year compared with the first half of 2016.
Few chief executives aim as high or push as hard as Mr. Musk, also the chairman and largest shareholder of Tesla, which is growing faster than General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. and is worth $34 billion in stock-market value. That’s about one-third of the two traditional auto makers combined.
In the past five years, though, Tesla has fallen short of more than 20 projections made by Mr. Musk, ranging from car-production output to financial targets, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. The company missed 10 of his stated goals by an average of nearly a year.
Tesla’s Model S sedan was rolled out on schedule in 2012, but its Model X sport-utility vehicle was delayed nearly two years before its debut last September. The Model 3 sedan, initially targeted for rollout by the end of 2014, was unveiled in March and won’t be delivered to customers until next year.
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