Tesla Inc. is about to find out whether the second time is the charm for Elon Musk making bold predictions about how many cars the company can build and sell.
The electric carmaker handed over the first 15 Model 3 sedans assembled at its new multibillion-dollar plant near Shanghai — its first outside the U.S. — to employees at the facility on Monday. Tesla took the same approach when it started production of the sedan in California in July 2017, delivering its first Model 3s to staff.
After reaching that milestone more than two years ago, Tesla went through months of what Musk called "production hell." After consistently falling well short of its chief executive officer's ambitious targets, the firm burned through billions of dollars and came within weeks of running out of money.