Tesla Motor CEO Elon Musk said the electric carmaker plans to release its much-anticipated SUV in September but warned deliveries could lag if it runs into production problems.
“Simply put, in a choice between a great product or hitting quarterly numbers, we will take the former,” Musk wrote in a letter to shareholders on Wednesday (Aug. 5).
He later told analysts that the Model X is a “particularly challenging car to build, maybe the hardest car to build in the world,” he said.
The company originally planned to release the car in 2014, but it’s met numerous delays.
Tesla, which reported a second-quarter loss of $184 million, also lowered estimates for the number of cars it will be able to deliver in 2015 from 55,000. It said it now expects to deliver between 50,000 and 55,000 Model S and Model X cars this year.
Musk said the company’s final testing of Model X “is going well,” but that there a bunch of factors that could slow down planned production. For instance, an issue at a single supplier that pushes back assembly by one week could reduce Model X production by 800 cars in the quarter. Since both car models are produced on the same assembly line, any problems with the Model X could also slow down Model S production.