I hope they hit it, but they've had manufacturing issues in the past. In fact they've never hit a target release date yet, 6 months late is the best they've do

I hope they hit it, but they've had manufacturing issues in the past. In fact they've never hit a target release date yet, 6 months late is the best they've done. Now this could be that: - they are just really optimistic on their release dates, - they announce early to try and cut off competitors sales - they just aren't that good at manufacturing ramp up. Just last night they were forced to join a recall due to faulty air bags from a supplier, Takata Corp. They've got alot of things that need to happen for this to occur. -They can't have any unforeseen issues op recalls crop up with the Model S or Model X. - They battery factory has to come online without a hitch. - The price of lithium and other rare earth minerals has to remain steady, I've heard that its very hard to hedge these prices due to a lack of counterparties willing to take on the risk - their rumored/china manufacturing plant has to come online smoothly - and off course they need to be able to ramp up manufacturing on a car they've never produced One side effect of this is that this means that US tax credits for EV cars would start to taper off at the beginning of 2018 and fully end at mid 2019 for all electric vehicles. I can't pin down any analysts on a consensus as to whether or not they'll hit their manufacturing target for either the first model 3 delivered or the 2018 500,000 cars manufactured. The only consensus I could get is that if they need more cash to make it happen they'll have no problem tapping the credit or equity markets, regardless of the conditions at the time. The markets seem to really want this to happen, which is awesome. Minor note on the story, Its true that TSLA moved up slightly in the after hours but its actually now well down from yesterday's close.